Author

Barbara Barbosa Neves & Frank Vetere

Dr Barbara Barbosa Neves (left) is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Monash University, Australia. She is also the Jacques Leclercq Chair in Digital Technology & Society (2019) at the University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Belgium. In addition, she is an elected board member of the International Sociological Association, Family Research Committee (RC06). Barbara is a sociologist of technology, interested in the links between digital and social inequalities. In particular, she studies the role of emerging technologies in later life. She specializes in mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative), participatory approaches, applied and cross-disciplinary methodologies. Her research has been awarded in Australia, Japan, North America, and Europe. Prior to moving to Australia, she was an Associate Director and Researcher at the 'Technologies for Aging Gracefully Lab' (TAGlab), Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Canada. At TAGlab, Barbara led interdisciplinary teams designing and evaluating digital technologies with/for older people living in long-term care facilities. Her studies have been used to improve the design of technology for diverse groups of older people and to inform care practices and policy in Canada, Europe, and Australia. Professor Frank Vetere (right) is a teacher and researcher in the Department of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. He the director of the Microsoft Research Centre for Social Natural User Interfaces (Social-NUI) and leads the Interaction Design Laboratory. Frank’s expertise is in Human-Computer Interactions (HCI) and Social Computing. He has particular interests in design-thinking and in technologies for ageing well. His research aims to generate knowledge about the use and design of information and communication technologies for human wellbeing and social benefit. He applies human-oriented design techniques, interpretations of ethnographies, and evaluation of technologies (field-based studies and lab-based experiments) to create knowledge about the design and use of ICTs. Frank serves on the editorial board of the journals Interacting with Computers (IwC), and the International Journal of Human Computer Studies (IJHCS) and is an expert member of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP TC13). At the University of Melbourne, he is a member of the executive committee on the Melbourne Networked Society Institute (MNSI), member of the steering committee on the Hallmark Ageing Research Initiative (HARI), member of the University Appointments and Promotions Committee (UAPC) and Fellow of the Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship, Ormond College. Frank is a general chair of CHISIG, Australia's leading body for HCI research.