Dr Lara Piccolo

Research Fellow

My research investigates the role and the design of technology, mainly social and ubiquitous, to engage people and communities with some global challenges like climate change, social inequalities and universal access to technology. I work with socio-technical and participatory approaches, directly involving people and communities in the design process.

My background is Computer Engineer and my PhD was obtained at UNICAMP, in Brazil, in 2015, in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) domain.
I have worked in this domain for more than 15 years, first in Brazil and since 2014 in the UK. Since then, my research has addressed energy conservation supported by a public and tangible feedback, smart meters, and social media; social media to promote community resilience in disasters; co-creation of chatbots for children's online safety and, most recently, strategies to fight misinformation spread online.

Back in Brazil, I worked for almost 10 years bridging academia, policymaking and industry in research projects mainly targeting digital inclusion of people with low literacy, sensory impairment, and energy literacy, also engaging people and communities with smart monitoring.

I am an IFIP TC13 representative and member of the Special Committee for Human-Computer Interaction at the Brazilian Computing Society (SBC).