Sandra Woolley

Biography

Sandra Woolley is a Deputy Director of The Digital Society Institute at Keele University, and the Computer Science Research Director and Leader of Software and Systems Engineering Research in the School of Computer Science and Mathematics where she is a Reader. Her administrative roles have largely centred around chairing research and taught programme ethics committees, and she is currently the Deputy Chair of the Central Keele University Research Ethics Committee. She is a Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS), a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (SMIEEE) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

Sandra obtained a first degree in Maths and Applied Physics after which she trained as a graduate engineer with Lucas Aerospace, UK, before completing an Electrical Engineering PhD (University of Manchester) sponsored by both British Gas (Pipeline Inspection) and ICI ImageData. After graduation, she contributed to storage and communications standards and guidelines as a researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, Maryland, U.S.A.

Prior to joining Keele University, Sandra was a lecturer in Electronic, Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Birmingham where she led modules on Computer Networking, Multimedia Data, Microcontroller Programming and Embedded Systems. At Keele University she has led modules on Computer Animation and Multimedia, Professionalism and Study Skills, and User Interaction Design (MSc).

Sandra has strong multidisciplinary research interests that encompass digital technologies, sensing systems and human-computer interaction (HCI), particularly related to digital health and digital heritage. She has supervised 13 PhD researchers to completion as principal supervisor and has achieved over £1.5M in research funding. She chaired the earliest UK symposia on wearable computing and chaired the 35^th BCS Human-Computer Interaction Conference at Keele University in 2022.

She leads and contributes to international multidisciplinary research collaborations which include:

1. virtual 3D environments and cultural informatics for which she led the Computer Science REF2021 Impact Case Study based on her research contributions as a founding member of The Virtual Cuneiform Table Reconstruction Project 
2. the design, prototyping and evaluation of wearable and assistive health technologies including NHS studies and collaborations with leading clinicians and health researchers.

Research publications can be found at ResearchGate and Google Scholar.

ORCID

Research and scholarship

Sandra Woolley is a Deputy Director of The Digital Society Institute at Keele University. She is also the Computer Science Research Director, Leader of Software and Systems Engineering Research and the Deputy Chair of the Central Keele University Research Ethics Committee. She is a Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS) and a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (SMIEEE) and she is a member of the BCS North Staffordshire Branch Committee and a member of the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Technology Award Committee.

Sandra is an active member of the EPSRC Peer-Review College and has contributed to several health technology panels for different calls. She is an Associate Editor of the MIT Press PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality Journal and has edited a special issue on ‘User Experience and Engagement in the Reality–Virtuality Continuum’. She has reviewed papers for many journals and conferences including Nature, various IEEE transactions and proceedings and ACM CHI. She chaired the earliest UK symposia on wearable computing and was the Conference Chair for the 35^th BCS Human-Computer Interaction Conference at Keele University in July 2022. Sandra has also substantially contributed to outreach and to women in science and engineering initiatives over a number of years and provided an expert video for The Science Museum’s Information Age Exhibition.

Sandra has supervised 13 PhD researchers to completion as principal supervisor and has achieved over £1.5M in research funding from industry, charity and Research Council awards. She has strong multidisciplinary research interests that encompass digital technologies, wearables, assistive sensing systems and human-computer interaction (HCI), particularly related to digital health and digital heritage. For example,

• Health technology research involving the design, development and evaluation of novel sensing and assistive technology systems. This research has included clinical collaborations for wireless sensing and mobile app development for the management of anaphylaxis, the development of wearable patient monitoring systems and the visualization and analysis of acquired data, and the evaluation of wearable sensing systems including wearable epilepsy seizure monitors.
• Digital heritage research for which Sandra led the Computer Science REF2021 Impact Case Study based on her research as a founding member of The Virtual Cuneiform Table Reconstruction Project which contributed novel approaches to photogrammetric acquisition and automated means of achieving the virtual joining of 3D fragments.

Research publications can be found at ResearchGate and Google Scholar.

Teaching

• CSC-40043 User Interaction Design (Advanced Computer Science MSc module)
• CSC-10026 Computer Animation and Multimedia (1st year BSc Computer Science module)

Further information

For my research papers and other data please see:

• ResearchGate Profile,
• Google Scholar Profile and
• LinkedIn Profile.

For further information on some of my current research projects please see: 

• The Virtual Cuneiform Project, 
• The AllergiSense Project and 
• The Quantified Outpatient.