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Dr Stephann Makri

Senior Lecturer

School of Science and TechnologyDepartment of Computer Science

Contact details

Address

Dr Stephann Makri A202, College Building
City, University of London
Northampton Square
London EC1V 0HB
United Kingdom

Personal links

About

Overview

Dr. Stephann Makri is a Senior Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), at the intersection of HCI and Information Science. He specialises in Human Information Interaction (how people find, interpret and use information on digital information environments - e.g. websites, search engines, digital libraries, social media). His research involves understanding how people interact with information and using this understanding to inform the design of digital information environments to create experiences that are engaging, enriching, exciting and fulfilling. His research aims to empower people to interact with information in ways that preserve their autonomy in thinking and decision-making, minimise and mitigate against information harms (such as overwhelm, addiction, manipulation etc.) and stimulate engagement, curiosity, serendipity and creativity.

Qualifications

  1. PhD Human-Computer Interaction, City, University of London, United Kingdom, 2008
  2. MSc Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics, University College London, United Kingdom, 2004
  3. BSc (Hons) Business Information Systems, University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, 2003

Postgraduate training

  1. Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, AdvanceHE, United Kingdom

Employment

  1. Senior Lecturer, City, University of London, Apr 2013 – present
  2. Research Associate, University College London, Feb 2009 – Jan 2013
  3. Visiting Lecturer, University of Hertfordshire, Jul 2005 – Sep 2011
  4. Lecturer, University of Hertfordshire, Sep 2004 – Jul 2005

Memberships of professional organisations

  1. British Computer Society, Sep 2013 – present
  2. The Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI), Apr 2013 – present
  3. Association for Information Science and Technology, May 2012 – present

Teaching

Approach

Stephann teaches at both Undergraduate and Graduate levels and has taught a variety of Human-Computer Interaction, Information Science and Information Technology courses. His teaching ethos is firmly student-focused and his teaching sessions are interactive and focus on fostering conceptual change. Stephann is also an advocate of innovative teaching methods.

Modules

Information Architecture (module leader)
Information Management (module leader)
Human-Computer Interaction (lecturer)
Research Methods & Professional Issues (guest lecturer)

Research

Research interests

Understanding how digital information is acquired (i.e. both sought and encountered), interpreted and used in the context of peoples' work and everyday lives.

Feeding this understanding into the design of new and improvement of existing digital information environments. This involves designing to better support peoples' information needs, tasks and behaviour and evaluating digital information environments to ensure they are useful and usable.

Media appearances

Research featured on BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Digital Human’ programme (June 2012) and on BBC Radio Solent (November 2012).

Research featured in a variety of print and online media outlets, including The Sunday Times (21st October 2012), The Daily Mail (28th October 2012), The Huffington Post (9th October 2012), News.com.au (30th October 2012), Emerald Street (8th October 2012), PhysOrg (5th October 2012), Soul&Spirit Magazine (January 2013), Red Magazine (April 2013), Healthy Magazine (Sep. 2013), Readers Digest Australia (Oct. 2013), Readers Digest New Zealand (Oct. 2013), Readers Digest Asia (Oct. 2013), Readers Digest Singapore (Oct. 2013), Readers Digest Philippines (Oct. 2013).

Research students

Robert Heeley

Thesis title: TBD

Further information: Current PhD student, joined Oct. 2013

Publications

Publications by category

Books (2)

  • Blandford, A., Furniss, D. and Makri, S. (2016). Qualitative HCI Research: Going Behind the Scenes. Springer Science and Business Media LLC.
  • Race, T.M. and Makri, S. (2016). Accidental Information Discovery: Cultivating Serendipity in the Digital Age. ISBN 978-1-84334-750-7.

Chapters (4)

  • Blandford, A., Furniss, D. and Makri, S. (2016). Introduction: Behind the scenes. Qualitative HCI Research: Going Behind the Scenes (pp. 1–6). USA: Morgan and Claypool Publishers. ISBN 978-1-62705-759-2.
  • Race, T.M. and Makri, S. (2016). Making Room for Serendipity. Accidental Information Discovery (pp. 15–26). Elsevier.
  • Makri, S. and Race, T.M. (2016). Serendipity in Current Digital Information Environments. Accidental Information Discovery (pp. 53–80). Elsevier.
  • (2016). Serendipity in Future Digital Information Environments. In Accidental Information Discovery (pp. 81–114). Elsevier.

Conference papers and proceedings (35)

  • McKay, D., Owyong, K., Makri, S. and Gutierrez Lopez, M. (2022). Turn and Face the Strange: Investigating Filter Bubble Bursting Information Interactions. CHIIR '22: ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval.
  • Buchanan, G., Kelly, R., Makri, S. and McKay, D. (2022). Reading Between the Lies: A Classification Scheme of Types of Reply to Misinformation in Public Discussion Threads. CHIIR '22: ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval.
  • Leigh, A., Makri, S., Taylor, A., Mulinder, A., Hamdi, S. and Ranade, S. (2021). Preserving for People: Observing Humanities Scholars’ Research Practices in a Hybrid Archive Environment. iPRES 2021 the 17th International Conference on Digital Preservation 19-22 October, Beijing, China.
  • Leigh, A., Makri, S., Taylor, A., Mulinder, A. and Hamdi, S. (2021). From Information to Knowledge Creation in the Archive: Observing Humanities Researchers' Information Activities.
  • Mckay, D., Makri, S., Gutierrez-Lopez, M., MacFarlane, A., Missaoui, S., Porlezza, C. … Cooper, G. (2020). We are the Change that we Seek. CHIIR '20: Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval.
  • Cole, L., MacFarlane, A. and Makri, S. (2020). More than Words. CHIIR '20: Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval.
  • McKay, D., Makri, S., Chang, S. and Buchanan, G. (2020). On Birthing Dancing Stars. CHIIR '20: Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval.
  • Komatsu, T., Gutierrez Lopez, M., Makri, S., Porlezza, C., Cooper, G., MacFarlane, A. … Missaoui, S. (2020). AI should embody our values: Investigating journalistic values to inform AI technology design. NordiCHI '20: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society.
  • Gutierrez-Lopez, M., Missaoui, S., Makri, S., Porlezza, C., Cooper, G. and Macfarlane, A. (2019). Journalists as Design Partners for AI. CHI 2019 4-9 May, Glasgow.
  • Missaoui, S., Gutierrez-Lopez, M., Macfarlane, A., Makri, S., Porlezza, C. and Cooper, G. (2019). How to Blend Journalistic Expertise with Artificial Intelligence for Research and Verifying News Stories. CHI 2019 4-9 May, Glasgow.
  • Buchanan, G.R., McKay, D. and Makri, S. (2019). Take Me Out. CHIIR '19: Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval.
  • Makri, S., Chen, Y.-.C., McKay, D., Buchanan, G. and Ocepek, M. (2019). Discovering the Unfindable: The Tension Between Findability and Discoverability in a Bookshop Designed for Serendipity.
  • Butler, C., Makri, S., MacFarlane, A., Wisdom, S. and Cooke, I. (2018). Sheltering the dream and protecting the dreamer. OzCHI '18: 30th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference.
  • Waugh, S., McKay, D. and Makri, S. (2017). 'Too Much Serendipity'. CHIIR '17: Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval.
  • Makri, S., Ravem, M. and McKay, D. (2017). After serendipity strikes: Creating value from encountered information.
  • Day, J., Buchanan, G. and Makri, S. (2015). Introducing the RSDiary App for the Collection of Resilience Strategies. ECCE '15: European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics 2015.
  • Day, J., Buchanan, G. and Makri, S. (2015). Lessons from Mobile Users. MobileHCI '15: 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services.
  • Makri, S., Bhuiya, J., Carthy, J. and Owusu‐Bonsu, J. (2015). Observing serendipity in digital information environments.
  • Makri, S. (2014). Serendipity is not Bullshit.
  • Makri, S. (2013). From Grounded Theory to Design Practice. BCS-HCI 2013 Workshop 9-13 September, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK.
  • Piao, S., Bental, D., Whittle, J., Aylett, R., Makri, S. and Sun, X. (2012). A Pilot Study: Deriving a Users' Goal Framework from a Corpus of Interviews and Diaries. Workshop on Semantic Relations II. Enhancing Resources and Applications 22 May, Istanbul, Turkey.
  • Maxwell, D., Woods, M., Makri, S., Bental, D., Kefalidou, G. and Sharples, S. (2012). Designing a semantic sketchbook to create opportunities for serendipity. BCS HCI 2012 Birmingham, UK.
  • Russell-Rose, T. and Makri, S. (2012). A Model of Consumer Search Behaviour. 2nd European Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction and Information Retrieval Nijmegen, Netherlands.
  • Russell-Rose, T. and Makri, S. (2012). Designing for Consumer Search Behaviour. 6th Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction and Information Retrieval Cambridge, MA, USA.
  • Makri, S., Toms, E.G., McCay-Peet, L. and Blandford, A. (2011). Encouraging Serendipity in Interactive Systems.
  • Woods, M., Sharples, S., Sun, X., Aylett, R., Stewart, R., Bental, D. … Whittle, J. (2011). Understanding Serendipity to Inform Novel Processes, Methods and Technologies for the Researcher. igital Economy All Hands Conference: Digital Engagement Newcastle, UK.
  • Makri, S., Blandford, A. and Cox, A.L. (2010). This is what I'm doing and why: Reflections on a think-aloud study of DL users' information behaviour. ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
  • Attfield, S., Makri, S., Kalbach, J., Blandford, A., Gabrielle, S.D. and Edwards, M. (2008). Prioritisation, Resources and Search Terms: A Study of Decision-Making at the Virtual Reference Desk. European Conference on Digital Libraries.
  • Makri, S., Blandford, A. and Cox, A.L. (2007). ‘I’ll just Google it!’: Should lawyers’ perceptions of Google inform the design of electronic legal resources? Web Information-Seeking and Interaction Workshop 2007 (WISI2007) 23-27 July, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
  • Makri, S. (2007). Studying Academic Lawyers' Information-Seeking to Inform the Design of Digital Law Libraries.
  • Makri, S. (2006). Studying law students’ information-seeking behaviour to inform the design of digital law libraries, Presented as a poster presentation. European Conference on Digital Libraries 17-22 September, Alicante, Spain.
  • Makri, S., Blandford, A. and Cox, A.L. (2006). A Study of Legal Information-Seeking Behaviour to Inform the Design of Electronic Legal Research Tools. 1st International Workshop on Digital Libraries in the Context of Users' Broader Activities (DL-CUBA) 15 June, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
  • Day, J., Buchanan, G. and Makri, S. Reflecting on Users’ Strategies for Resilient Interactions. IFIP WG 13.5 Workshop on Resilience, Reliability, Safety and Human Error in System Development. Adjunct proceedings of the 15th IFIP TC13 Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (INTERACT 2015) Bamburg, Germany.
  • Makri, S. Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Encouraging Serendipity in Interactive Systems.
  • Makri, S., Leigh, A., Taylor, A., Mulinder, A. and Hamdi, S. From Information to Knowledge Creation in the Archive: Observing Humanities Researchers’ Information Activities. Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Salt Lake, USA.

Internet publication

Journal articles (34)

Posters (3)

  • Day, J., Buchanan, G. and Makri, S. When Things Go Right: Learning from Resilience Strategies. , 2015.
  • Woods, M., Sharples, S., Sun, X., Aylett, R., Stewart, R., Bental, D. … Whittle, J. Understanding Serendipity to Inform Novel Processes, Methods and Technologies for the Researcher. In proceedinga Digital Economy All Hands Conference: Digital Engagement. Newcastle, UK., 2011.
  • Makri, S. Studying Law Students' Information Seeking Behaviour to Inform the Design of Digital Law Libraries. Alicante, Spain, 2006.

Theses/dissertations (3)

Other

  • Erdelez, S., Heinström, J., Makri, S., Björneborn, L., Beheshti, J., Toms, E. … Agarwal, N.K. (2016). Research perspectives on serendipity and information encountering.

Professional activities

Editorial activity

  1. Guest editor of thematic Issue of Information Research on ‘Information by Chance: Opportunistic Discovery of Information,’ 16(3). Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/16-3..

Events/conferences (4)

  1. IRMSS Research Methods conference. Limerick, Ireland (2013).
    Description: Kenote presentation: See right through me: achieving transparency in qualitative research.
  2. 75th Annual Meeting of the Association of Information Science and Technology. Baltimore, MD, USA (2012).
    Description: Presentation: Coming across academic social media content serendipitously
  3. Dundee Contemporary Arts. Dundee, UK (2012).
    Description: Serendipity in interactive systems
  4. The Royal Institution of Great Britain. London, UK (2012).
    Description: Invited panel discussion: Business success: what’s luck got to do with it.

Keynote lecture/speech

  1. Keynote presentation at IRMSS Research Methods conference 2013. Limerick, Ireland (2013). Title: See Right Through Me: Achieving Transparency in Qualitative Research

Other (11)

  1. Jun 2013 Invited to run a seminar for creative business professionals at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, UK..
  2. Mar 2013 Co-organised ‘Serendipity Salons’ design workshop for design professionals at Future Everything festival and innovation lab, Manchester, UK..
  3. Feb 2013 Invited talk at Soho House member’s club for those in the film, media and creative industries..
  4. Oct 2012 Invited talk to User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA), London, UK..
  5. Jul 2012 Invited to run ‘serendipity stories’ workshop with Extra Special People group, Eastside Projects Gallery, Birmingham, UK..
  6. Oct 2011 Co-organised information interaction research workshop with attendees from FXPal and The British Library..
  7. Jul 2009 Invited to participate in open debate on ’20 Years of the Web,’ BBC Media Centre, London, UK..
  8. Mar 2008 Co-organised information interaction research workshop with attendees from British Telecom..
  9. Feb 2008 Organised and ran a tutorial to LexisNexis Butterworths on user-centred evaluation methods..
  10. Feb 2007 Invited talk on lawyers’ digital information behaviour to partners at systems development team, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, London, UK..
  11. 2006 Provided user-centred consultancy to Marie Curie Cancer Care, United Response, Help the Hospices, LexisNexis Butterworths, The British Library, Paperstone, UCL Management Systems and Library Services, Allianz, the BBC..