Professor Karen Cham
Faculties, deparments and locations
- Faculty of Business and Social Sciences
- Department of Strategy, Marketing and Innovation
- Kingston Business School
- Kingston Hill
Professor of Augmented Intelligence, Digital Transformation & Design
- Email:
- k.cham@kingston.ac.uk
About
I am Co-Director of The Behavioural Research Analytics in Neurotechnological Systems (BRAINS) Lab, a collaborative research and knowledge exchange facility concerned with ethical, inclusive and sustainable digital futures. I am an internationally recognised expert in human-centred design for VUCA socio-technical scenarios at scale. My research is in human/machine convergence, the digital transformation of values and designing for behaviour change.
Previously, at the University of Brighton, I was cross University Professorial lead for ‘Connected Futures', a fifth of the University R&E strategy, including Digital Economies; Immersive, Simulations & Virtualisation; Complexity & Design, and Digital Health. This included two spin-offs; EmERGE mHealth, a secure blood test App I scaled across five EU countries from a £7m H2020 project and CardMedic, scaled to 42,000 users in 8 months.
As part of Digital Economies, I was Academic Lead of Brighton Digital Catapult Centre and two innovation eco-systems for SMEs. Their £1.2m 5G Brighton test bed with 5GIC as a named part of the UK Govts 5G Strategy, where I was also a Member of UK5Gs SME Working Group formulating UK-wide policy and as Principal Investigator, the £1.3m ERDF ‘Data Research Innovation Value Accelerator' big data project with Gatwick airport in a B2B Data Innovation Lab funded by the Local Growth Fund. This led to my £28m Impact Case Study, "Transforming the digital economy by leveraging the value of data', putting the University second nationally for ‘Research Power'.
I have 35 years of experience in human-centred design (HCD), technology innovation, transformation, and computational design. Clients have included PlayStation, TopShop, Which? and Accenture. My first website, touchscreen and AI were as an experimental artist and designer of experiential marketing and in 1996, I was the Princes Youth Business Trust regional delegate to the Youth for Europe innovators conference at the EU Parliament for my microbusiness model run by ISDN. In 1998, I led the development of the first ever pan-European website for Playstation2 as Senior Account Manager at RealTime Interactive at Evans Hunt Scott in Soho Square (now Havas Worldwide) and was later seconded to BT New Media.
My academic career started in 2000 with an AHRC PhD Scholarship to SIAD, now part of University College of the Creative Arts (UCCA). My first post was in 2004 at The Open University as a Central Academic in the Design & Innovation Dept. under Prof Nigel Cross; 5* RAE and third in UK for design research after the RCA and Imperial. In 2005 I won an OU Teaching Award for creating and sustaining their first online learning community that to date has 25,000 alumni. As part of the Complexity & Design Research Cluster (Computational Design theme), I worked closely with the Knowledge Media Institute (KMI) under Professor Marc Eisenstadt on Early Careers work developing semantic computer vision ontologies for Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) that led to my honorary affiliation to the Digital Imaging Research Centre (DIRC), one of the largest clusters of computer vision scientists in Europe at Kingston University in 2008. In 2009, I led a £100k HEFCE-funded project with academics from across four faculties at Kingston for the DMK Masters suite of six courses that runs as a micro-studio to deliver live projects, currently 250 students 22/23.
I am a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Women In Games Ambassador sponsored by Google Women Tech Makers, and a Non-Executive Director and Trustee of NEST, the UK government's £24bn pension with 12m users, the largest FinTech transformation of its kind in the world.
Qualifications
- PG Diploma in Qualitative Research Methods (2001)
- NVQ3 Digitally Integrated Media (1995)
- BA (Hons) Fine Art. Special Commendation in History & Theoretical Studies (1991)
Domains
I am interested in Supervising practice-based work that contributes to the development of Industry 5.0 transformational, parametric and/or generative systems, particularly with regard to human factors, ethics and instances of the singularity. Applications of cognitive systems design, machine learning, and computer vision for new technologies, such as BCI, 5G MEC, IoT complex deployments, in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous scenarios particularly welcome.
For example :
- digital transformation of values / policy / ideology / law
- commercial applications of biometric interfaces
- psychometric hypernetworks in MNOs
- social and cultural applications of Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
- 5/6G native user experience
- human centred Mobile Edge Computing (MEC)
- HCD and network slicing applications
- cognitive / neural networks
- behavioural Internet of Things (IoT)
- causal AI
- intelligent personas
- digital immortality
- Internet of Mind (IoM)
Qualifications
- (2005) The Open University Teaching Award, Creating & sustaining the first online learning community
- (2009-15) Director of Studies, Digital Media Kingston Masters Suite of 6 courses. Two Special Commendations at Validation for interdisicplinary working and industry relations
- (2009-15) Course Director, MA Games
- (2021) 12 hour online CPD course as part of £1.3m ERDF research project 'Data Driven UXD & Geo-data Economies' for busineses including Vodafone, Tesco and IBM
My practice-led research is in human-centred design for complex technical transformations at VUCA scenarios and at scale by understanding how to leverage human agency via cognitive and behavioural affordances. My work investigates specifically how machine learning models might close the semantic gap in diverse forms of sentiment analysis for complex human/machine convergence to engineer whole systems change.
Stemming from my own commercial practice, this has involved a long-term investigation into the social semiotics of the constructed image, advertising and brand in an algorithmic and networked context, informing novel methods in human factors, design for complexity, ML and AI.
These methods have thus far helped define workable human-centred morphologies of, and topographies for, User Experience Design (UXD) vectors, grammars and architectures of digital artefacts, products, services and ecosystems by means of semantic analogies for corpus and systematic algorithmic formalisms.
Contributing to research in human factors across:
- behavioural analytics
- attribution metrics
- cognitive machine learning
- psychometrics
- neuro-marketing
- hybrid AI
- neural networks
- cognitive, emotional, social and cultural computing
My work is applied in transformational, parametric and/or generative systems for:
- eCommerce
- computer games
- digital health
- innovation eco-systems
- organisational agility
- next-generation wearables such as Brain-Computer Interfaces
I have always been interested in the technicities of material culture:
- how visual meaning, values and affordances are designed, transacted and maintained through media technologies
- how iconography, belief, ideology, narrative and mythology are designed, commodified and transacted in representational systems
- the technical performativity of cultural capital
- the relationship between asset, affordance, agency, end-user engagement, behaviour and social impact
Specifically, over the last 25 years, this has been in relation to digital transformation of values and complex human factors engineering.
My first neuro-game & dementia tech in 2009 led to breakthrough cognitive UX design patterns based upon visual textual analysis paradigms. From that work, I developed "RhizoMetrics" TM (2014), a behavioural parametric design method that supports the development, monitoring and recalibration of behavioural affordances in any computational context.
Using RhizoMetrics, I developed cognitive UXD paradigms for:
- nudge mechanics
- neuro-navigation
- neuro-transformation
to guide valuable and ethical singularities in IoT, robotics & immersive environments for Industry5.0 and beyond, as core to a fundamental Human / Machine Operating System - HM/OSS for which I am in the process of patenting a foundational neurosymbolic AI with support from Innovate UK.
My work has always generated personal, behavioural, and socio-cultural data and insights, putting me at the forefront of ethical debates for many years. Defining ethical parameters for designed user experiences is a primary objective of my research.
Specialisms
- Human Centred Design
- Digital Transformation
- Complex Systems
- Behavioural Analytics
- Human Augmentation
I am a human centred industrial designer who works with technology; expert in R&D for ‘Next Gen'; delivering creative innovation in complex technical scenarios; leading on complexity and design methods for socio-technical outcomes at scale; creative industries / STEM convergence in industrial and teaching, research and enterprise transformation.
My expertise is in designing for persuasion, emotion & trust (PET) in User Experience Design (UXD) and I have worked in e-commerce, games, e-health, e-learning, heritage & the arts, FinTech and military & defence with iOS, Android, Windows, Cloud, Xbox, Playstation & Drones; MIDI, haptics, holography, stereoscopy and AR/VR; applied sensor technologies, biometrics (inc. eye tracking, facial recognition, EEG, EMG, GSR), computer vision, machine learning, predictive analytics, big data and automatic signal recognition and I have ten years working with Brain-Computer Interfaces.
By means of experiential marketing and then eCommerce, I started my first digital business in 1996 and won EU recognition for the micro-business model I devised outsourcing production worldwide via ISDN from two PowerMac 8500s with 16MB RAM as the PYBT regional delegate at the Youth For Europe Conference at the EU Parliament in Brussels. I went on to lead first wave digital transformation from print to digital at Realtime Interactive, part of EHS advertising agency in Soho Square, alongside Malcolm Garrett (1998). Process innovations, for example for the first ever pan-Eurpoean website for Playstation2 (1999), included maintenance contracts and a paid problem definition phase to account for a high level of innovation (now ‘Sprint0' in Agile Development) went on to contribute to ‘FULCRM', a global user centred design innovation service at Havas Worldwide.
With a background in experimental electronic arts and design, my first bid was to Arts Council England New Collaborations Fund in 1991; commissioned artworks include my first website for Boddingtons Manchester Festival in 1994 (FACT) and touchscreen narrative alongside Jane & Louise Wilson (LFVU) in 1995, interactive game (HTBA) 1995 and A.I. 1997 (LJMU) alongside Sean Cubitt as part of the seminal TechnoCultures One. Exhibitions include Video Positive at Tate Liverpool (1998), MicroTel Voluptous Blinking Eye Teletext intervention on Nederland Channels 1, 2 & 3 (2006) and Big Screens, across ten cities in Russia (2005).
Publications
Changing the university genome : a case study of digital media Kingston
Cham, Karen, 2012, Networks (17)
Reconstruction theory : designing the space of possibility in complex media
Cham, Karen, 2007, International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media (3), 2-3, pp 253-267
Complexity theory: a science of cultural systems?
Cham, Karen and Johnson, Jeffrey, 2007, M/C Journal (10), 3, pp 21-34
Consumer as producer; value mechanics in digital transformation design, process, practice and outcomes
Cham, Karen (2017). In: Shiach, Morag, (eds.) and Virani, Tarek, (eds.), Cultural policy, innovation and the creative economy. Palgrave McMillan, pp 61-81
Designing for the play instinct : gamification, collective voodoo and mumbo jumbo
Cham, Karen and Webley, Stephen (2016). In: Dymek, Mikolaj, (eds.) and Zackariasson, Peter, (eds.), The Business of Gamification : A Critical Analysis. Routledge, pp 182-207
Inside the minds of gamers
Heath, Terry, Cham, Karen and Yates, Carl (2014). In: Garner, Cathy, (eds.), Bolfek-Radovani, Jasmina, (eds.), Fogg, Helen, (eds.), Riedel, Jana, (eds.), Ternouth, Phil, (eds.), Briscoe, Gerard, (eds.), Dima, Mariza, (eds.), Shiach, Morag, (eds.) and Virani, Tarek, (eds.), London creative and digital fusion. London, U.K.: London Fusion, pp 54-57
Architecture of the image
Cham, Karen (2011). In: Dunn, Stuart, (eds.), Bowen, Jonathan P., (eds.) and Ng, Kia, (eds.), Electronic visualisation and the arts: proceedings of EVA London 2011, BCS London, 5 Southampton Street, London 6-8 July 2010. Swindon, U.K.: BCS, pp 117-183
Experience design, interactive art environments and the sense of becoming
Mytilinaiou, S, Cham, Karen and Hutchison, Christopher (2011). In: IEEE, (ed.), Mixed and augmented reality - arts, media, and humanities (ISMAR-AMH), 2011 IEEE International Symposium. IEEE, pp 91-98
The art of complex systems science
Cham, Karen (2010). In: Alexiou, Katerina, (eds.), Johnson, Jeffrey, (eds.) and Zamenopoulos, Theodore, (eds.), Embracing complexity in design. Abingdon, U.K.: Routledge, pp 121-142
Aesthetics and interactive art
Cham, Karen (2009). In: Bentkowska-Kafel, Anna, (eds.), Cashen, Trish, (eds.) and Gardiner, Hazel, (eds.), Digital visual culture: theory and practice. Bristol, U.K.: Intellect Books, pp 15-21
5G enabled mobile AI and human centred edge services : (that chipset thing)
Cham, Karen(2021). In: 5G Briefing 2021, 16 - 17 Nov 2021 :Frankfurt, Germany
Digital transformation of a pandemic
Cham, Karen(2020). In: AHT2020 : how appropriate healthcare technologies contribute in a public health emergency, 11 Sep 2020 :Held online
Cognitive UX design : engineering behaviour change
Cham, Karen(2019). 20 Jun 2019 : London, U.K.
Cham, Karen(2019). In: Digital Transformation World 2019, 14-16 May 2019 :Nice, France
UXD 4.0 : Designing the human experience of data rich complexity in pervasive XR
Cham, Karen(2019). In: UXinsight 2019, 03-04 Apr 2019 :Utrecht, The Netherlands
Designing change : NeuroMedia as a metanoic practice
Cham, Karen(2018). In: Semiofest 2018, 24-27 Oct 2018 :Mumbai, India
Cham, Karen(2018). In: Develop:Brighton Conference, 10-12 Jul 2018 :Brighton, U.K.
Bankrupting gamification : when a method becomes mythologised
Cham, Karen(2017). In: Gamification Europe 2017, 28-29 Nov 2017 :Brighton, U.K.
Models from complexity science
Cham, Karen(2017). In: UX Brighton 2017, 03 Nov 2017 :Brighton, U.K.
Prototyping the Internet of Place : designing for human centred complexity - data driven UX of loT and smart cities
Cham, Karen(2016). In: DRHA16 : Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts Conference, 04 - 07 Sep 2016 :Brighton, U.K.
NeuroMedia : towards defining brain computer interface (BCI) content
Cham, Karen(2015). In: Gaminomics : Adventures in Games and Gamifications, 11 Jun 2015 :London, U.K.
Unlocking the minds of gamers
Heath, Terry, Krause, Sven and Cham, Karen(2014). In: Innovation Powerhouse, 15 Nov 2014 :London, U.K.
Design by spambot : can social interaction be successfully integrated into high end fashion design processes?
Cham, Karen and Ibi, Andrew(2014). In: DRHA2014 : Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts Conference, 31 Aug - 03 Sep 2014 :London, U.K.
Virtually an alternative? The medium, the message and the user experience ; collective agency in digital spaces and embodied social change
Cham, Karen(2014). In: 5th LAEMOS Colloquium on Organization Studies Constructing Alternatives: How can we organize for alternative social, economic, and ecological balance, 02 - 05 Apr 2014 :Havana, Cuba
The convergence of complex systems science and art practice in the computational arts
Cham, Karen(2011). In: Rewire 2011: the fourth international conference on the histories of media art, science and technology, 28-30 Sep 2011 :Liverpool, U.K.
The cybernetic interface to the human bio computer
Cham, Karen(2011). In: Virtual Futures, 18-19 Jun 2011 :Coventry, U.K.
A proposal for an aesthetics of engagement in intelligent environments
Cham, Karen(2011). In: SciT'11: Multidisciplinary Approach to Designing Intelligent Environment in conjunction with IE'11: 7th International Conference on Intelligent Environments, 25-28 Jul 2014 :Nottingham, U.K.
A semiotic systems approach to user experience design
Cham, Karen(2011). 25-27 Nov 2011 : Lemesos, Cyprus.
Reality jamming : beyond complex causality in mediated cultural systems
Cham, Karen(2008). In: International Symposium on Electronic Art, 25 Jul - 3 Aug 2008 :Singapore