NMAP Group Members Deakin University
School of Engineering and Information Technology
Prof Kathy Blashki: Leader
Professor (Dr) Katherine Blashki is the Chair of New Media Technologies (New Stuff!) at Deakin University. Her research interests include educational applications for games technology, narrative and representation in new media, access and equity in technology, digital performance and her current obsession with motion capture! Kathy is a board member of Film Victoria.
Kathy is also a pivotal contributor towards the supervision of PhD and Honours students within the school of E&IT, and thoroughly enjoys research supervision (as you will see from the number of PhD students she has). Kathy also teaches within the Engineering and Information Technology and Arts schools at Deakin University. She is the head of the Games Design and Development Stream.
Please contact Kathy at any time for more information (particularly if you have got anything that is bright, shiny and new!!). kblashki@deakin.edu.au
Click here to view Kathy Blashki's publications.
Sophie Nichol: PhD Candidate
Sophie Nichol is a PhD Candidate at Deakin University. She joined the school of Engineering and Information technology in 2005 after completing her honours project entitled ‘User requirements of mobile phones with multimedia’. Her research interests lie in creativity support systems for generation Y and the current working title of her thesis is ‘Creative geeks? Facilitating the creative growth of generation Y students using engaging environments’. The aim of the research is 'to show that technology enhanced ‘purpose built’ learning environments can be conducive to creativity, if they embody certain ‘creativity’ factors. In addition the aim is to show that the learning environments must demonstrate a reflective and pragmatic pedagogical philosophy in conjunction with certain ‘creativity’ factors, and the support of technology, to facilitate and engage creativity in games students'. Her supervisors are Prof Kathy Blashki and Dr. Michael Hobbs. To contact email: sophiecl@deakin.edu.au.
Click here to view Sophie Nichol's publications.
Supawan Prompramote: PhD Candidate
Supawan is a PhD Candidate at Deakin University and supervised by Prof. Kathy Blashki. Supawan graduated with a MIT at Queensland University of Technology in 2002. Supawan was born in the beautiful city of Bangkok, Thailand. She started her PhD studies in Bio-informatics, but moved to the exciting area of children and their interaction with game technology, at the end of December 2004 under the supervision of Prof. Kathy Blashki. To contact email: sprom@deakin.edu.au
Click here to view Supawan Prompramote's publications.
Guy Wood-Bradley: PhD Candidate
Guy Wood-Bradley completed his undergraduate Bachelor of Computing (Multimedia Technology) degree at Deakin University (Melbourne Campus at Burwood) in 2002. He then went on and completed his Bachelor of Computing (Honours) degree at the end of 2003. This research was on the usability of DVD menus, some of which has already been published. Since 2004, Guy is continuing and channeling his research areas into affective usability and interactive television (iTV) under the supervision of Professor Kathy Blashki. This research forms the basis of his PhD. To contact email: guywb@deakin.edu.au
Click here to view Guy Wood-Bradley's publications.
Dharani Perera: PhD Candidate
Dharani's research focus is on investigating how voice recognition technology can be utilised to assist visual artists with upper limb disability to create art in a digital medium. Presently most assistive technologies are geared towards assisting disabled people in employment and independent living. Whilst there is no dispute about the value of such technologies, there is a dire need to enhance their “quality of life”. Visual Art is a socially valued activity through which, people with disability can make a positive contribution to the cultural life of the community. However little is done in terms of technology to assist disabled people to create visual art. Many tools available for artists are of low technology or built as one-off projects to support an individual artist. Voice recognition is a recent topic in human computer interaction. Research has been conducted to study ways in which, voice recognition can be used as an alternate input/output method. To contact email: dpp@deakin.edu.au
Click here to view Dharani Perera's publications.
Kirsten Ellis: PhD Candidate (Monash University)
Kirsten Ellis is a lecturer and PhD student at Monash University, however she continues to have Kathy Blashki as her supervisor. Kirsten research interests lie in HCI, Children and Computing.
