Ken,
could you please advice me how to come in contact with project UMA?
Do they have a website or any other obvious mean of information and contact?
Thanks in advance.
Kristina
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Friedman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 9:47 AM
Subject: Project UMA
Friends,
Yesterday, Terry Love posted a comment to the list, stating, “The personnel
on the project though doesn’t seem to have any scientists / mathematical
modelers in there with expertise in neuroscience.” I asked why Terry
believes this. There has been no reply to my query. This brief note
describing the project will outline our expertise.
A project such as this involves massive investments in staffing, research
fellowships, andlaboratories. This project represents millions of dollars
and Euros in university and external funding. Terry is mistaken in the
belief that the senior management of four leading research universities
would make the kind of investment without proper staff expertise. I was dean
at Swinburne Design when we launched this project, so I will outline staff
expertise on one of the best-staffed research projects in the field of
design research.
The four partner universities in Project UMA are Technological University of
Delft, Cambridge University, University of Vienna, and Swinburne University
of Technology, all highly ranked research universities. The core research
metrics used to compile the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) at
Shanghai Jiao Tong University show Cambridge at 5 worldwide, with Vienna in
the top 200 research universities,Delft in the top 300, and Swinburne in the
top 400. Major research projects require approval by the faculty and the
university, with careful review by the dean and the deputy vice chancellor
for research with ultimate oversight by the vicechancellor.
At the Technological University of Delft, the project is located in the
Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. At Swinburne University of
Technology, UMA is in Design. At Cambridge University, UMA is in
Engineering. At the University of Vienna, UMA is in Psychology.
The principal investigator in Delft is Prof. Paul Hekkert, psychologist and
professor of form theory at Technological University of Delft. Paul is also
founding president of the Design and Emotion Society. The Dutch major
funding for this project is theVici grant, a high-level expert grant of
1,500,000 Euros from NWO, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.
This project is basic research in the traditional sense of the term. This is
the largest funding ever allocated to a basic research program in the design
field.
At Swinburne, the principal investigator is Prof. Allan Whitfield, a
psychologist who helped to develop the concept of neuroaffective design. We
also have Prof. Gitte Lindgaard, former Distinguished Professor and Cognos
Chair in User-Centred Product Design at Carleton University and Director of
the Human Oriented Technology Lab; and Associate Professor John Patterson,
the former director of Swinburne’s sensory neuroscience lab. Our investments
include staffing, full-funded doctoral research fellowships, and building a
neuroscience lab at the Faculty of Design.
Dr. Clementine Thurgood is our post-doctoral research fellow on this
project. As a PhD student at Swinburne Design, she invented and patented
some of the computer systemsthat allow us to test perceptions and perception
time at far faster speeds than was thought possible before her work – her
LED-Tachistoscope can accurately display visual material down to one
millisecond, a level of exposure no other instrument can achieve. Swinburne’s
Gitte Lindgaard had actually achieved the fastest times until then.
Clementine published her instrumentation in the Review of Scientific
Instruments from the American Institute of Physics and she published her
research outcomes in the journal Vision Research from Elsevier.
The principal investigator at the University of Vienna is Prof. Helmut
Leder, head of psychology and deputy director of cognitive science. At
Cambridge University, the principal investigator is Dr. Nathan Crilly,
Burrell Fellow in Engineering at Clare College. We also work with Prof. Kieu
Nhi Ngo on neural networks. She is one of Vietnam’s top scientists, and a
leading expert in the field.
Our staff and researchers come from artificial neuro-networks, biophysics,
brain measurement, cognitive science, design, engineering, engineering
design, HCI, philosophy, psychology, psychophysiology, statistics. All of
our research students won full-funded research fellowships following first
class honors degrees in their undergraduate fields. Our team has significant
and sophisticated skills in mathematics, mathematical modeling, and
statistics.
There have been research projects in neuroscience, cognitive science, and
design dating back well over a decade. This involves more than “drawing
attention to the potential role of neuro-cognition in design research.” It
is a long-term commitment to serious research in the field. This work
enabled us to develop the massive funding this project represents.
With respect to funding, Terry got it backward. This was not a case of money
“being allocated by funding bodies” with universities “following up.” In the
Netherlands, Project UMA bid for the highly competitive Vici program funding
against top quality projects in the full range of research fields. The NWO
states that the Vicigrant “is directed at senior researchers who have shown
that they have the ability successfully to develop their own innovative
lines of research and to act as coaches for young researchers.” The Vici
grant required a serious research proposal supported by strong track records
of scientific and scholarly research. In Australia, Austria, and the UK, we
are funding our own projects while seeking additional resources.
It’s clear that Project UMA has expertise in neuroscience and mathematical
modeling.
Yours,
Ken
Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia |
[log in to unmask] | Phone +61 3 9214 6102 |
http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design
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