Biography

CV Feb 2011    

Full Publications List

I have worked across the boundaries of technology, health, education and communication in commercial, public, academic and voluntary organisations.

I hold a PhD on Emotion Recognition in Computing, supervisor Kate Hone, DISC, Brunel University. See my thesis here.

I have an Msc in Human Computer Interaction and Ergonomics from UCL

I have worked on academic research projects at UCL, Human Communication Science, University of Surrey, European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, and Economics Department and Brunel University, Information Systems and Computing.

I am a reviewer for various HCI journals and conferences and for some years I co-hosted a workshop series on emotion in computing. http://www.emotion-in-hci.net/

Before that, I worked in the voluntary sector in order to campaign for better services for people with communication difficulties. I was professional adviser to Speakability and also did some work for Communications Forum.

I am RCSLT and HPC registered as a speech and language therapist and have worked in school, hospital and community settings with people of all ages, with all sorts of communication disorders or difficulties.

I hold a BDA Diploma for teaching children with specific learning difficulties.

As a speech and language therapist, I specialise in:

• Non verbal communication and expression of emotion
• Social use of language - for example the types of pragmatic difficulties children with autism often experience
• Aphasia – the type of language loss from stroke or brain injury that leaves problems in both understanding and/or expressing yourself through written and/or spoken language
• Dyslexia – difficulties with written language.
• Communication Aids – technologies that assist communication 

I was raised with an interest in new technologies and my first ‘proper’ job was in computing.

Away from work, I am an avid reader and recently have spent a fair bit of time researching history related to my family tree. I love to socialise, travel, walk the dog, swim, do anything to do with design or creative stuff and spend time with family and friends.

Role

Senior Research Fellow in the Human Centred Technology Lab, Interactive Systems Group, Department of Informatics, School of Engineering and Informatics

I am currently working on the Patient Record Enhancement Programme on the Ergonomics of Patient Records Project.  

Previously I worked on the Motivating Mobility Project  in the Interact Lab.

I have taken an interest in other lab projects including a study of senior citizens adopting the Wii and when time allows, I have been working on Moodmat Flowcoder - a coding tool for coding emotions.

Contact 01273 872 778     l.axelrod@sussex.ac.uk

Interact, Arundel 223, Human Centred Technology Lab, Interactive Systems Group, Department of Informatics, School of Engineering and Informatics University of Sussex, Falmer Campus, Brighton  BN1 9QH     UK

Directions

Campus maps and directions to campus

Picture directions to Interact

Community and Business

I am interested in community projects and am often involved with voluntary groups on project work.

I am interested in consultancy work that is at the boundary of health and emotional wellbeing and use of technology. 

I'm interested in communication in all its forms. I see new technologies, or new arrangements of older ones, as having potential to support the ways people learn, socialize, live, work, rest, and play.  I have developed a special interest in affective (emotional) systems and the design of technologies to promote wellbeing.  

I am passionate about participatory approaches and love to work with diverse people and in diverse domains. I believe computers are only one element of a socio-tech system – and should be developed with users in order to support people -  not just because the development of a system is technologically feasible. I’m good at observing and understanding people’s needs, I love problem solving and like nothing more than finding an innovative solution that might, or might not, be high tech. 

Axelrod, Lesley, Fitzpatrick, Geraldine Ann, Henwood, Flis, Thackray, Liz, Simpson, Becky, Nicholson, Amanda, Smith, Helen, Rait, Greta and Cassell, Jackie (2011) 'Acted Reality' in Electronic Patient Record Research: A Bridge Between Laboratory and Ethnographic Studies. In: Interact 2011: 13th IFIP TC13 Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 5-6th September, Lisbon, Portugal.

Axelrod, Lesley, Fitzpatrick, Geraldine Ann, Henwood, Flis, Cassell, Jackie, Smith, Helen, Nicholson, Amanda and Rait, Greta (2011) Data Recording in Primary Care Field Studies. In: 5th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare (PervasiveHealth) and Workshops, 23 - 26th May, Dublin, Ireland.

Axelrod, Lesley, Fitzpatrick, Geraldine Ann, Henwood, Flis, Nicholson, Amanda, Rait, Greta, Smith, Helen and Cassell, Jackie (2011) Secondary use of data recorded in primary care: insights from human computer interaction field studies. In: 40th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC'11), 6-8th July, Bristol, UK.

Axelrod, Lesley and Henwood, Flis (2010) Invisible data: secondary users working with concealed information in electronic patient records. In: Third Annual Conference - Explorations in Ethnography, Language and Communication: Perspectives on Data, 23-24th September, Birmingham, UK.

Axelrod, Lesley (2010) Health histories in the digital era and other tech-life-stories. In: Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research Seminar Series, 25th May, Falmer, UK.

Axelrod, Lesley and Henwood, Flis (2010) Dances with disciplines? Practice and performance in multidisciplinary electronic patient record (EPR) research. In: The European Association for the Study of Science and Technology Conference (EASST'10), 2-4th September, Trento, Italy.

Axelrod, Lesley and Fitzpatrick, Geraldine Ann (2009) Planning human computer interaction field studies in primary care: patient records ergonomics project. In: 23rd British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: Celebrating People and Technology, 1-5th September, Cambridge, UK.

Axelrod, Lesley (2009) Poster for the recruitment of surgeries for the Patient Records Enhancement Programme (PREP). In: Primary Care Research Network Networking Event, September 2009, Surrey, UK.