Catherine Holloway

• Brief biography
• Office Hours
• Current Research
• PhD Students
• Research Publications

Brief biography

I am a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science based in UCLIC who is passionate about the design of usable assitive technologies. I am happiest when making things work well, especially when these things are useful to people with disabilities.

My first degree was in Industrial Engineering from the National university of Ireland, Galway. I graduated in 2004 and then worked as an R&D engineer with Medtronic designing angioplasty balloons before deciding to undertake a PhD at UCL in 2006. My PhD focussed on developing methods for measuring accessibility and mobility of wheelchair users out of doors. This began a theme of my research which is measuring clinical parameters in the wild. From this research the SenseWheel was conceived as an idea which was recently spun out as a community interest company called Movement Metrics.

I completed my post-doctoral research as part of the PICAV project from 2009 - 2012 which designed a semi-autonomous vehicle capable of being used on footways. During this time I was the lead researcher within the Accessibility Research Group and also directed UCL's PAMELA facility. During this time I developed the biomedical capabilities at PAMELA, which sits within UCL's Civil Environmental & Geomatic Engineering Department. These capabilities helped secure funding for projects as diverse as Wearable Assistive Materials and Seeing What They See. I also ran a number of research projects for transport authorities such as Transport for London and High Speed Rail 2 investigating infrastructure design on passenger flows. These reports are archives here.

I took up a lectureship at UCL's Civil Environmental & Geomatic Engineering Department in 2012 where I developed the theme of how we measure and aid movement in people with disabilities. During this time I secured funding for AART-BC, AARCS and Seeing What They See. In Sept 2016 I was promoted to senior lecturer.

In February 2016 my appointment was transferred to UCLIC and since then I have received my first grant for a project we fondly call Power-Up!, which looks to design new power sources and interfaces for assitive technologies starting with the humble wheelchair.