University of Malta (UoM)
About
The University of Malta (UoM) is the highest University in Malta. There are some 10,000 students including over 750 foreign/exchange students from nearly 80 different countries, following full-time or part-time degree and diploma courses, many of them run on the modular or credit system. The University is geared towards the infrastructural and industrial needs of the country so as to provide expertise in crucial fields. Over 2,500 students graduate in various disciplines annually. The degree courses at the University are designed to produce highly qualified professionals, with experience of research, who will play key roles in industry, commerce and public affairs in general. There are a further 3,000 pre-tertiary students at the Junior College which is also managed by the University. The University has twelve faculties: Arts; Built Environment; Dental Surgery; Economics, Management & Accountancy; Education; Engineering; Information & Communication Technology; Health Sciences; Laws; Medicine & Surgery; Science and Theology. The UoM has obtainted substantial funding from European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to enhance and upgrade its research infrastructures capacity. Finally, UoM was involved in numerous FP projects (i.e., 11 FP5, 37 FP6, 24 FP7) as partner or coordinator. The Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences (MaKS), where the proposed research will be performed, studies the pivotal role of media and communications. The Faculty houses a multi-disciplinary digital games research group with backgrounds from Computer Science (specifically AI and HCI), the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.
UoM Team
Prof. Georgios N. Yannakakis
Georgios is an Associate Professor at the Center for Computer Games Research. His research interests lie at the crossroads of AI (computational intelligence, preference learning), affective computing (emotion detection, emotion annotation), advanced game technology (player experience modelling, procedural content generation, personalisation) and human-computer interaction (multimodal interaction, psychophysiology, user modelling). He has authored/co-authored more than 90 journal and conference proceedings publications in the aforementioned fields. His is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Trans. on Affective Computing and the IEEE Trans. on CI and AI in Games journals.
Associate Prof. Rilla Khaled
Rilla received her PhD (2008) in Computer Science from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. From 2008 - 2009, she held a post doctoral research position at the Human- Oriented Technology Lab of Carleton University, Ottawa. She joined the University of Malta in September 2012. Rilla's research interests include persuasive and serious games, persuasion, cross-cultural psychology, design methodologies, and human-computer interaction. Much of her research has examined how culture moderates persuasion in game and technology interfaces, how designers incorporate this persuasion both consciously and unconsciously, and how to design for effective persuasion given cultural orientation. Some of her current research focuses on bridging methodologies between those of User Experience and Interaction Design practices and game development, and ways of involving end users and stakeholders within the game design process. She is currently involved in the FP7 ICT SIREN project (2010-2013) and the FTP (Danish Research Council) Games for Health project (2011-2013). She has authored/co-authored more than 25 refereed publications relating to games, persuasion, culture, and values.