Petr Slovak

Overview

I am a Visiting Research Fellow at UCLIC, funded by Schroedinger Fellowship from Austrian Science Fund. I also hold a Honorary Research Fellow with Evidence Based Practice Unit at UCL as well as a Visiting Researcher position at Oxford University.

My research is positioned at the intersection of HCI, mental health promotion, and learning sciences. I am interested in understanding how technology can meaningfully help in supporting the development of social-emotional competencies---such as self-regulation, coping with stress, or conflict resolution---in real-world contexts. This research agenda is supported through collaboration with multiple partners including Anna Freud Centre in London, UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz, and Committee for Children (a US-based non-profit developers of a social-emotional learning program used in more than 30% of US schools). We've published a series of papers furthering this research direction over the last 3 years (2x CHI, 2x CSCW, 1x TOCHI), including a Best Paper award at CHI'17.

At the moment, my main research project focuses on understanding of how novel digital objects (e.g., smart toys) could be embedded in the everyday lives of young children and their families to provide in-situ support for the development of self-regulation competencies (Anna Freud, UC Santa Cruz, CfC). I also serve as the Research Lead on two other projects: embedding conflict-resolution training into Minecraft gameplay for children aged 11-14 (UC Irvine, CfC); and a personal informatics app empowering parents of 2-5 year olds to develop positive parenting techniques (UCL, CfC). Finally, I co-supervise two PhD students in Vienna as part of an EU ITN grant.

Brief biography

I grew up in Brno, Czech Republic, where I also received my undergraduate and masters education: a BSc in Psychology/Sociology in addition to BSc and MSc in Computer Science. I have received a PhD in Human Computer Interaction at TU Wien in March 2017, funded by a highly competetive DOC fellowship from Austrian Academy of Sciences. I've been awarded a Schroedinger Research Fellowship by Austrian Science Fund to continue my post-doctoral research at UCL for 2 years.