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PhD Candidate, Newcastle University

Sara is a researcher, designer and educator, her work spanning interaction design, interior design and physical computing. She is currently a PhD student and an HCI researcher at Open Lab, Newcastle University, where her work centers around Ubiquitous Environments from the lens of Architecture and Interior Design.

Driven by a vision where the future interior designs would no longer have to be static, Sara is investigating ways we could potentially design and build interiors that are context-aware, dynamic, changeable and `living'; responding to our implicit and intuitive interactions to meet our needs, support our well-being and improve the quality of living.

Sara's current research is about novel interfaces that are soft, flexible and dynamic, with a particular focus on building OUIs (Organic User Interfaces). She is interested in how we can embed interior spaces with interactivity using soft electronics, e-textiles and smart materials that are malleable, shape-changing or colour-changing. And studying how will people perceive, interact and live with interactive interior spaces.

Experience

  • 2015–present
    Interactive-Interior Design Researcher, Newcastle University
  • 2014–2015
    Human-Computer Interaction Lecturer, MSA University
  • 2009–2014
    Sr. Software Developer, Vodafone Telecommunication
  • 2008–2009
    Software Developer, Intercom Enterprises

Education

  • 2014 
    Helwan University, MSc in Computing
  • 2006 
    Suez Canal University, BSc in Computing

Publications

  • 2018
    Decorating Public and Private Spaces: Identity and Pride in a Refugee Camp, Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • 2018
    ActuEating: Designing, Studying and Exploring Actuating Decorative Artefacts, Proceedings of the 2018 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2018
  • 2017
    Designing Future Ubiquitous Homes with OUI Interiors: Possibilities and Challenges, Interaction Design and Architecture(s) Journal
  • 2017
    Interioractive: Smart Materials in the Hands of Designers and Architects for Designing Interactive Interiors, Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
  • 2017
    Interactive Architecture: Exploring and Unwrapping the Potentials of Organic User Interfaces, Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction