Professor Chris Baber PhD FBCS FCIEHF

Professor Chris Baber

School of Computer Science
Chair of Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0) 121 414 4778
Email
c.baber@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
School of Computer Science
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Chris Baber is Chair of Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing. He joined the University of Birmingham in 1990 and, after working in several Engineering schools, joined the School of Computer Science in 2018. His research concerns human interaction with technology – specifically, in terms of human people form teams with intelligent technology, and in terms of sensor-based human-technology interaction.  He has published over 100 papers in international journals, as well as over 400 conference contributions and half a dozen books.  His research has been funded by the UK Ministry of Defence, RCUK, European Union and various industries. He has supervised around 30 students to the completion of their PhD.

Qualifications

• PhD Human Factors of Speech Technology in 1990
• BA (Psychology / English) in 1987

Fellowships

  • Fellow of the British Computer Society
  • Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors

Biography

Chris graduated from Keele University with a BA (Hons) in Psychology and English Literature. He decided to pursue a PhD and joined Aston University’s Applied Psychology Unit to research speech technology.  He joined the University of Birmingham in 1990 to lecture on the MSc Work Design and Ergonomics programme (initially in the School of Production Engineering before it moved to the School of Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering). In 2002 he moved to the School of Electronic, Electrical and Computer Engineering, partly to continue his research on wearable computers and partly to deliver courses on the MSc Human-Centred Systems. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer, Reader and Professor before becoming Head of School in 2013. In 2019 he moved to the School of Computer Science, in connection with work on human-machine teaming.

Teaching

  • Small Embedded Systems (in the School of Engineering)

  • Evaluation Methods and Statistics

Postgraduate supervision

Chris has supervised around 30 students to completion of their PhDs.

Research

His PhD concerned the application of speech technology (still quite a novel thing back in the late 1980s, where he worked with a Marconi Macrospeak speech recogniser, learning the rudiments of Unix to get the thing working), which was part-sponsored by a National electricity distribution company. So, he spent time visiting power stations and distribution centres to get an idea of how people did their work. During his PhD, he became interested in supporting speech recognition for mobile workers – which resulted in a large laptop, running the speech recogniser, in a rucksack, together with GPS antenna, and a small head-mounted, monocular television display, to read the words that had been recognised. Naturally, this led to working on wearable computers. Since then, he has shifted the sensors from the person onto everyday tools and objects in order to study the development and retention of human skill. Related to the wearable computers work, he developed technology for crime scene examination – which led to work on sense-making (that is, how crime scene examiners interpret a crime scene and select evidence), which led to work with Police and Intelligence analysts. This has led to work on how human decision making is supported by Artificial Intelligence, and to the study of human-machine teams. In all of this work, he combines an interest in studying human behaviour ‘in the field’ with the design and making of gadgets to measure or support activity.

Other activities

• Panel Chair for EPSRC and Member of EPSRC College
• External Examiner for Loughborough University

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Baber, C & Janulis, K 2020, 'Purposeful tool use in early lithic technologies', Adaptive Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059712320941543

Al-shanfari, L, Demmans Epp, C, Baber, C & Nazir, M 2020, 'Visualising alignment to support students’ judgment of confidence in open learner models', User Modelling and User Adapted Interaction , vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 159-194. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11257-019-09253-4

Morar, N, Baber, C, McCabe, F, Starke, S, Skarbovsky, I, Artikis, A & Correai, I 2019, 'Drilling into dashboards: responding to computer recommendation in fraud analysis', IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems, vol. 49, no. 6, pp. 633-641. https://doi.org/10.1109/THMS.2019.2925619

Baber, C, Morar, N & McCabe, F 2019, 'Ecological interface design, the proximity compatibility principle, and automation reliability in road traffic management', IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 241-249. https://doi.org/10.1109/THMS.2019.2896838

Baber, C, Chemero, T & Hall, J 2019, 'What the Jeweller’s Hand Tells the Jeweller’s Brain: Tool Use, Creativity and Embodied Cognition', Philosophy and Technology, vol. 32, pp. 283-302. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-017-0292-0

Attfield, S, Fields, B & Baber, C 2018, 'A resources model for distributed sensemaking', Cognition, Technology and Work, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 651-664. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-018-0529-4

Baber, C 2018, 'Designing Smart Objects to Support Affording Situations: Exploiting Affordance Through an Understanding of Forms of Engagement', Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 9, 292. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00292

Starke, S & Baber, C 2018, 'The effect of four user interface concepts on visual scan pattern similarity and information foraging in a complex decision making task', Applied Ergonomics, vol. 70, pp. 6-17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2018.01.010

Chapter

Xochicale, M, Baber, C & Oussalah, M 2017, Analysis of the movement variability in dance activities using wearable sensors. in Biosystems and Biorobotics. Biosystems and Biorobotics, vol. 16, Springer, pp. 149-154. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46532-6_25

Conference contribution

Aljammaz, K & Baber, C 2022, Human-centred principles for the design of shape- changing tangible user interfaces. in T Ahram & R Taiar (eds), Human Interaction & Emerging Technologies (IHIET-AI 2022): Artificial Intelligence & Future Applications. AHFE international, vol. 23, Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE) International, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Human Interaction & Emerging Technologies, Lausanne, Switzerland, 21/04/22. https://doi.org/10.54941/ahfe100865

Acharya, A, Howes, A, Baber, C & Marshall, T 2018, Automation reliability and decision strategy: A sequential decision making model for automation interaction. in 62nd Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, HFES 2018. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, vol. 1, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Inc., pp. 144-148, 62nd Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, HFES 2018, Philadelphia, United States, 1/10/18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541931218621033

Baber, C 2018, Thinking with hands, acting with minds: embodied cognition and creative practice. in S Bagnara, R Tartaglia, S Albolino, T Alexander & Y Fujita (eds), Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2018) - Volume VII: Ergonomics in Design, Design for All, Activity Theories for Work Analysis and Design, Affective Design. 1st ed. 2019 edition edn, vol. 8, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 824, Springer Verlag, pp. 225-234, 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association, IEA 2018, Florence, Italy, 26/08/18. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96071-5_24

Chen, X, Starke, S, Baber, C & Howes, A 2017, A cognitive model of how people make decisions through interaction with visual displays. in CHI '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery , pp. 1205-1216, ACM CHI’17 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Denver, United States, 6/05/17. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025596

Baber, C, Khattab, A, Hermsdörfer, J, Wing, A & Russell, M 2017, Coaching through smart objects. in PervasiveHealth '17: Proceedings of the 11th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, Association for Computing Machinery , pp. 298-306, 11th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, PervasiveHealth 2017, Barcelona, Spain, 23/05/17. https://doi.org/10.1145/3154862.3154938

Editorial

Baber, C, Golightly, D & Waterson, P 2019, 'Editorial: the cybernetic return in human factors and ergonomics', Applied Ergonomics, vol. 79, pp. 86-90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2019.01.011

View all publications in research portal