About

My background

Since May 2011 I am Senior Lecturer in Interaction Design at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands. Here I collaborate with around 35 colleagues in education and research in the domain of Commucation and Multimedia Design. My mission here is to strengthen the bonds between academia and industry, outreaching with our educational program as well as research initiatives.

From 2006 until April 2011, I was Associate Professor in Computational Design at the University of Madeira, Portugal, and in 2010 I was vice-president of the Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute. I lectured in the areas of computer-aided design and human-computer interaction and was director of the undergraduate course on Interactive Media Design. I also lectured in the Civil Engineering programme and the Professional Master of Human-Computer Interaction, a dual degree programme with Carnegie Mellon University. In 2007 I taught in the department of Art and Design, in areas of graphical and industrial design.

Before my stay at Madeira, I was Associate Professor in Collaborative Design at Eindhoven University of Technology, in the department of Architecture, Building and Planning, where I had previously graduated and got my PhD in '99.

Motivation

O professor que deixa de ser estudante deixa de ser professor.
(The teacher who ceases to be a student, is no longer a teacher.)
 - Augusto Guimarães

I really enjoy teaching and working with students who are eager to learn and to surprise you every time. I've never taught a class in which I didn't learn something significant myself.

Over the past twenty years, many research topics have caught my interest that can be best captured using the terms collaborative design, computational design, and interaction design. I am intrigued and driven by the opportunities that new technologies and media offer to create better designs and like to work on projects that cross creativity with information technology. Sometimes these are projects that aim to design innovation, other times the aim is to innovate design.

Wie zegt dat kennis duur is, weet niet wat domheid kost.
(Who says that knowledge is expensive, does not know the cost of stupidity.)
 - Alexander Rinnooy Kan, Chairman of the Dutch Socio-Economical Council - 17 April, 2010.

My research interests are broad and have evolved over the years from design information modelling and design support systems, to collaborative design, participatory design, and web-supported design. My current interest is in design of web-based communication: I believe that the integration of data technologies, the world-wide web, and telecommunication offers great potential in the innovation of our social networks, the way we communicate and inform ourselves. My interest is in creating interactive online communication platforms with appealing and functional interfaces that people will use intuitively to access integrated data resources and to participate in dynamic, ubiquitous ways of communication. In my previous posts at the University of Madeira and at Eindhoven University of Technology, I have established contacts with many organisations that are active in the areas of my interest. In my curriculum you will find an overview of these activities. See the research page for details about projects in which I am or have been involved. Over the years, I have published about my work mostly in scientific conferences and journals.