User:Sharpic

Simon Harper Research Scientist (Senior Lecturer)

University of Manchester

School of Computer Science

Kilburn Building, Oxford Road

Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom

Wordpress: http://simon.harper.name

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/sharpic

Lab Site: http://wel.cs.manchester.ac.uk

Dr Simon Harper is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, a Senior Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Chair of the W3C WAI Research and Development Working Group, and research lead for the Web Ergonomics Laboratory. He is interested in how users interact with the Web and how the Web, through its design and technology, enables users to interact with it. He believes that by understanding interaction in the context of accessibility, usability, and disability we are better placed to understand, and solve the associated problems of everyones interactive behaviour.

Simon has led numerous Web related research projects including the EPSRC (EP/E002218/1) Reciprocal Interoperability between the Accessible and Mobile Webs project, the EPSRC (EP/E062954/1) SASWAT: Structured Accessibility Stream for Web 2.0 Access Technologies project, the Leverhulme Trust (F/00 120/BL) SCWeb2: Senior Citizens and the Web 2.0 project and he currently leads the Google (Grant Scheme) 'Accessibility Catch-Up: Techniques for Disseminating Accessibility Research', the EPSRC funded 'Text Entry For Older Adults' KTA grant (EP/H500154/1--R113685 - Collaborating with Age Concern, Buttercup Telecommunications, and CTIC), the EPSRC funded 'Multiple Screen Orchestration' KTA grant (EP/H500154/1--R114060 - Collaborating with the BBC), the EPSRC funded 'Online Social Support for Cancer Patients and their Families' Windfall grant (EP/K005294/1--R114041), and the Basque Government (BFI-2010-305) 'COPE: Coping Strategies for Improving Blind Users Interaction with the World Wide Web'; along with the WIMWAT, ViCRAM, & EIVAA Pilot Studies.

He is a founder of the W4A Conference on Web Accessibility (2004--2012); Programme Chair for ACM ASSETS (2006); Submissions Chair for the WWW Conference (2006) and Accessibility Chair for the 2012 edition; ACM Student Research Competition Grand Finals Judge (2012), General Chair for ACM Hypertext (2007) and ACM ASSETS (2008) and is also a member of the steering committee for these two conferences. He has served on the programme committees, doctoral consortium panels, and review panels for a number of international conferences including ACM HT, WWW, ISWC, ACM CHI, UIST, ACM ASSETS, and ACM SAC. He has guest edited the New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia; Journal of Web Engineering; Journal of Disability and Rehabilitation, and Universal Access in the Information Society. He currently reviews for ACM Transactions on Computer Human Interaction, ACM Transactions on the Web, Elsevier Journal of Web Semantics, and IEEE Internet Computing; and is a member of the Editorial Board of the ACM's Transactions on Accessible Computing, Springer Journal of Interaction Science, and PLoS ONE.

His latest book `Web Accessibility: A Foundation for Research' has for two years ranked in the Amazon - Human Computer Interaction top 40, and in the top 10 for six months. He has delivered invited research talks for IBM Tokyo, Fujitsu Labs Europe, and the University of the Basque Country, as well as a Keynote at WebMedia 2008 and as an invited expert to the EPSRC Digital Economy Inclusion Cluster. He is an ICT panel member for the UK EPSRC, and reviews for the UK EPSRC, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; and the Dutch National Research Council. Finally, he is a recipient of the ACM Doug Engelbart prize (2000), the ADDW IBM Research prize (2005), the Microsoft Web Accessibility Judges Award at the W4A (2008), and the Best Paper Award at W4A (2010).