People within Smart Environments

Professor Raymond Bond

Professor of Human Computer Systems

Raymond has research interests within human-computer systems which has mainly included applications of biomedical and healthcare informatics (digital health). Raymond's work has involved the application of human-computer interaction and data science/machine learning techniques to healthcare research. His work has involved health data analytics as well as the modelling, processing and visualisation of medical data to enhance clinical decision-making, including the creation of interactive decision support systems. He also has research interests in computerised simulation-based training in healthcare, usability engineering/UX data analysis methods to improve medical devices, eye-gaze analytics in clinical decision making, and is also involved in designing and evaluating digital health and wellbeing interventions. Raymond has over 350 research outputs and has chaired/co-chaired a number of conferences: 1) 32nd International BCS Human Computer Interaction conference, 2) the 45th/ 46th Annual Conference of the International Society for Computerised Electrocardiology, and 3) the 31st Annual European Conference of Cognitive Ergonomics).

Raymond initiated a UX-Lab which is an outlet for transferring usability engineering knowledge to the medical device industry and other industries. Raymond has been a grant holder on research projects funded by EPSRC, ESRC, HSC, FP7, H2020, InvestNI, Samaritans Ireland, Innovate UK, Higher Education Academy, InterTrade Ireland and the Royal Irish Academy.

Raymond obtained his BSc(hons) and PhD in the School of Computing and Mathematics (Ulster University). He is a senior fellow of the UK higher education academy. Before academia, he worked in the web industry and later held Research Associate positions in the subject areas of Connected Health and Computerised Electrocardiography. He also coordinated the Computing and Engineering Professional Education Centre for Northern Ireland (CEPEC-NI) where he managed computing science related outreach activities and summer schools.

Richard Davies

Lecturer in Computing Science

Richard Davies joined the School of Computing and Mathematics in 2001 as a Research Assistant and continued to work in this capacity until 2013 when he was appointed Lecturer in Computer Science. His research interests are aligned to the Smart Environment Research Group (SERG) and primarily focus on technologies to support independent living, assistive technologies and personalised self-management systems. In particular Richard has experience in designing and developing systems using various assistive technologies to support long term chronic conditions such as stroke, chronic pain, congestive heart failure, coronary obstructive pulmonary disease and dementia.

Richard is working towards his fellowship of the HEA and has conducted a number of pedagogic over the last two years. During his time as a Research Associate Richard worked extensively on both National and European projects to develop technologies to support independent living in the context of an ageing society. Prior to this, Richard obtained a Beng(Hons) in Electronic Systems from Ulster University.

Richard is currently pursuing a PhD within the School of Computing and Mathematics which aims to improve post stroke rehabilitation through the introduction of assistive/wearable technology. His main research focus is in stroke rehabilitation and he continues to publish in this area.

Richard has been a member of the IET for over 15 years and has served on various panels and committees such as Engineers Ireland Accreditation panel,  ICOST2012, CinC 2010, ICOST 2006 and PHealth 2004. In addition, he has co-chaired a workshop on Assistive Technology at the IEEE BIBM conference.

Dr Mark Donnelly

Senior Lecturer

Mark Donnelly is a Senior Lecturer with the School of Computing at Ulster University. He holds both a BSc (Hons) and PhD in Computer Science and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

He has co-authored over 130 publications in areas surrounding Data Mining, Digital Health, Human Activity Recognition, and Pervasive and Mobile Computing. He has been Co-Investigator on more than 15 multidisciplinary projects including those funded by RCUK EPSRC, EU AAL and LLP, H2020, NIHSC R&D, and InvestNI. As Principal-Investigator, he has led on the EPSRC funded BMAC project, Big Lottery UK LIFEPAL project and the EU-FP7 MICHELANGELO project.

Since 2019, Mark has served as the Course Director for BSc (Hons) Computing Systems. He also teaches a range of topics including Python Programming and Robotic Process Automation.

Dr George Moore

Senior Lecturer

George Moore is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing, where his current research, impact and teaching interests are in, Smart Healthcare, Human Computer Interaction and Affective Computing. A current focus in this regard being positive computing.

He is highly active in civic engagement activities, having established Google Developer Group Belfast, part of a global developer community, including Women TechMakrers. He has also coordinated the Mobile Academy Belfast and supporting a number of other community centred developer groups. This direct involvement with industry has grown from a strong track record of working directly with companies in order to help them to develop expertise, products and services in a wide range of areas, including affective computing, user experience design, social media, location based services, eLearning, forensic security, standards compliance, and smartphone application development.

In addition to his ongoing research, impact and civic engagement activities, he has over twenty years experience in teaching, course direction, and pedagogical research, at undergraduate and postgraduate levels; both nationally and internationally. His current teaching focus is coordinating undergraduate final year projects for the School of Computing.

George studied Computing at Ulster University, where he graduated with BSc (Hons) in Computing in 1994. He then went on to work in industry, in the areas of Soft Systems Analysis, and Expert Systems development before being invited to return to postgraduate study. He proceeded to research a PhD on Guided Aerial Image Analysis, which won a Best Thesis Award, before graduating with a PhD in 2000. George took up a lecturing post in computing at Ulster University, in 1999, where he is now a Senior Lecturer and a member of the Pervasive Computing Research Group.

Professor Christopher Nugent

Head of School of Computing

Chris is the Head of School of Computing and holds the position of Professor of Biomedical Engineering.

Chris received a BEng Electronic Systems and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering both from the University of Ulster.  From 2015-2017 he was the Director of the Computer Science Research Institute at Ulster University and in 2017 he was appointed Head of the School of Computing.  He is currently serving his second term in this role.

His research interests include the development and evaluation of technologies to support pervasive healthcare within smart environments. Specifically, this has involved research in the topics of mobile based reminding solutions, activity recognition and behaviour modelling and more recently technology adoption modelling.

He has published extensively in these areas with papers spanning theoretical, clinical and biomedical engineering domains. He has been a grant holder of Research Projects funded by National, European and International funding bodies.  He is the director of the Pervasive Computing Research Centre and is also the co-Principal Investigator of the Connected Health Innovation Centre.  In 2016 he was awarded the Senior Distinguished Research Fellowship from Ulster University.

Chris has focussed on the development of impact from his research through a number of industrial partnerships in the form of Innovation Centres.  He is Principal Investigator at Ulster for the PWC Advanced Research and Engineering Centre which has a focus on digital transformation, and co-investigator for the BT Ireland Innovation Centre which is developing computational solutions in the domain of the Internet of Things and cyber security.

Since 2008 he has served as an Associate Editor for the Editorial Board of the IEEE Engineering Medicine and Biology Conference,  Healthcare Information Systems Theme and he is currently serving as a member of Ireland’s Commission on Care for Older People.

Roy Sterritt

Lecturer in Informatics

Dr Shuai Zhang

Senior Lecturer in Computing Science

Shuai Zhang joined School of Computing and Mathematics and the Computer Science Research Institute in 2013 as an Associate Member. Shuai's research interests are in the areas of Intelligent Data Analysis for connected health applications.

Shuai graduated first class with a Bachelor degree in Computer Science after a four-year course with partial studentship at Heilongjiang University in Northeast China. She proceeded her study at University of Bradford and received an MPhil in Visual Arts Data Mining working on a novel voting algorithm for neuro-fuzzy classifier ensemble to identify similar Visual Arts objects. Shuai then successfully secured Vice-Chancellor's Research Scholarships at Ulster University to undertake her PhD study in Intelligent Data Analysis in School of Computing and Information Engineering. Her research focused on modeling semantically heterogeneous aggregate data in a distributed environment, which was then applied to learn inhabitants' behavioural patterns from unreliable low-level sensor data in smart environment to support assisted living. Continued with PhD research interest, Shuai has undertaken two research associate posts firstly in the CIPS project (Centre for Intelligent Point of Care Sensors) to model relationships between physiological change and Activities of Daily Living using wearable sensors potentially for everyday health monitoring. Before getting her first lecturer post in Ulster University, she joined MATCH project (Multidisciplinary Assessment of Technology Centre for Healthcare) to focus on modelling the benefits and costs associated with technologies for the delivery of Connected Health.

Professor Huiru (Jane) Zheng

Professor of Computer Sciences

Prof. Huiru (Jane) Zheng is a Professor of Computer Science with School of Computing and Mathematics, a full member of Computer Science Research Institute and a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. She was awarded a PhD in Bioinformatics in 2003 and a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education in 2005 from Ulster University.

Prof. Zheng is an active researcher in bioinformatics and healthcare informatics. Within her broad interests in data mining, data integration, machine learning and healthcare decision support, Prof. Zheng has a particular research interest and expertise in integrative data analytics in the field of systems biology, and intelligent data analysis and assistive technology to support healthcare and independent living. She has a successful track record of winning research funding as a principal investigator and has been a grant holder of research projects funded by EPSRC, TSB, DEL, NHS, Invest NI and European Commission including SMART Self Management, NOCTURNAL, CLARCH COPD Self Management, Self Management Platform for Connected Health, CardioWorkBench, mHealth4Afrika, SenseCare and MetaPlat. The products of her research have been reflected in her over 200 peer reviewed journal and conference publications.

Prof. Zheng is an IEEE member. She serves on the editorial board of several international journals and serves as co-chairs and program committees of a number of international conferences.

Dr Jose Santos

Deputy Head of School of Computing

Dr Ian Cleland

Research Director

My research focuses on creating innovative digital health solutions by combining wearable, pervasive, and mobile computing with data science and artificial intelligence. This work aims to transform healthcare by enabling personalised monitoring and intervention and promoting proactive care.

I have a deep interest in sensor-based activity recognition and synthetic data generation for data driven modelling. These technologies are advancing critical areas like patient monitoring, rehabilitation, and technology enabled care, with future developments aimed at making healthcare even more responsive and predictive.

I received my B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Ulster University, where I now serve as Research Director for the School of Computing. Previously, as Postgraduate Tutor (2018–2024), I supported the academic journey of approximately 55 PhD researchers each academic year. As the lead for Human-Computer Interaction research within the Pervasive Computing Research Centre, I’m committed to advancing digital health and developing impactful technologies.

I have authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications in top health informatics forums and secured more than £20M in research funding as both Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator. Notably, I am Co-Investigator for the Connected Health Innovation Centre (CHIC Phase 2, £3.36M) and the PwC Advanced Engineering and Research Centre (ARC, £3.13M). I currently serve as Co-Chair for the International Conference on Ambient Intelligence (UCAmI2024) and Vice Chair of the Alzheimer’s Association Technology and Dementia Executive Committee.

Dr Joseph Rafferty

Senior Lecturer

Andrew Ennis

Research Fellow

Dr Priyanka Chaurasia

Lecturer in Data Analytics