Dr Maria Angela Ferrario

Senior researcher associate, Catalyst project, Lancaster University. Catalyst is an EPRSC funded  community-driven academic research project aimed at developing new technology prototypes driven by community needs (Nov 2011/Oct 2014)

In the past two years I worked on three EPRSC funded interdisciplinary research projects: Dfuse; UDesignIT and VoiceYourView (VYV). I was part of the teams that secured the funding for Dfuse (£864k) and VoiceYourView (£840K).

Past Projects

VoiceYourView (Ju 2009/Oct 2011): VYV is a three-year  EPSRC funded project on public space design, people safety and crime reduction. During the first year of the project I was responsible for the user engagement and requirement capture for the VYV system. Based in Derry~Londonderry, I worked  in collaboration with Derry District Policing Partnership and Derry City Council investigating the perceptions of the local communities about the local police.  I was also responsible for the organisation of the first VYV trial which was held in the ‘wild’ at the Lancaster Central Library. During the trial over 2000 open comments were collected from over 600 library goers and automatically analysed.

Dfuse (Oct 2010/ Oct 2011): Dfuse is a a two-year EPRSC project aiming at deploying game and networks theory to improve evacuation and emergency management. My responsabilities included looking at the use of  social media in emergency situations.

UdesignIT (Nov 2010/ Oct 2011): UdesignIT is an EPRSC cross-disciplinary account that combines computing and sociology research to study new models of social media participation for addressing societal issues.  My role was to investigate emerging new forms of media convergence that combine traditional broadcasting media (TV, radio) and new communication platforms (on-line, social, mobile)

I am an Italian national who  lived in Ireland (North and South) for over fifteen years. After obtaining a degree in Philosophy in 1995, I left Milan for Dublin to brush up my English. A couple of years later I  was offered a place for an MSc in Multimedia Systems at the Engineering Department, Trinity College Dublin and a PhD in Computer Science at University College Dublin. I subsequently worked  as an Information Technology Officer with the crossborder agency ERNACT. My responsibilities included project management, research and fund raising. I lead a number of e-government projects which involved liaising with private consultancy companies, educational institutions, community groups and public sectors from a range of European countries.

Before joining Computing at Lancaster University in 2009, I worked as a Research Associate at the Academy for Irish Cultural Heritages (AICH) at the University of Ulster for three years. My main responsibilities at the Academy included: organisation of a range of National and International academic events (e.g. Northbound symposia series, SIEF2008); development of opportunities for interdisciplinary research (e.g. Digital Humanities, European Cultures);.