Dr Daphne Economou

Dr Daphne Economou

I am a senior lecturer at the Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of Westminster since January 2006.

Academic qualifications:  Fellow of Higher Education Academy, since 2014, PhD in Virtual Reality Systems Design from the Manchester Metropolitan University in 2001, MA. in Design for Interactive Media (Multimedia), Middlesex University in 1996.

I have published a long list of journal papers, peer-reviewed international conference papers and I served as program committee member in several international conferences. I have industrial experience as Human Factors Engineer at Sony Broadcast and Development Research Labs, Basingstoke UK and I am member of British Computer Society, IEEE and British Interactive Media Association (BIMA). I have been involved in the programme committee of several international conferences and I have organised and chaired workshops in IEEE international conferences related to serious games.

My research interest is in the area of User Experience Design, more specifically in the areas of Virtual Reality and Mobile Application Design applied in the domains of Education, Cultural Heritage and Healthcare.

I have been involved in several research projects funded by organisations like the Greek Ministry of Trade (Accessible Interactive Television Using the MPEG-21 Standard project - total budget of 486,000.00 Euros; EUMIDIS project - total budget of 486,000.00 Euros), SONY (one of which the Network Manager led to a patent), as well as projects funded internally by the University of Westminster. I led and successfully completed research projects funded by the European Union:

  • Project Coordinator of the NHMA project funded by INTERREG III in 2005 – total budget of 122,000.00 Euros;

  • Project Coordinator of the Mytilene e-guide project funded by LEADER+ in 2004 – total budget of 64,557.52.

My current research focuses on Serious Games in Education, Culture and Healthcare. I lead the “Serious Games at Westminster” (SG@W) Research Group a multidisciplinary research group committed to both research and developmental activities in order to foster greater knowledge, understanding and use of serious games in different domains. The SG@W work attracted interest from Cultural and Commercial Organisations.

SG@W current group members:

  • Daphne Economou (group leader), Computer Science (FST)
  • Vassiliki Bouki, Computer Science (FST)
  • Jeff Ferguson, Computer Science (FST)
  • Maria Margeti, Computer Science (FST)
  • Markos Mentzelopoulos, Computer Science (FST)
  • Chrystalla Ferrier, Biomedical Sciences (FST)
  • Anatoliy Markiv, Biomedical Sciences (FST)
  • Lena Springer, East Asian Sciences and Traditions in Medicine (EAST medicine) FST
  • Mark Gardner, Psychology (FST)
  • Frands Pedersen, DPIR (FSSH)
  • Paresh Kathrani, Law (FSSH)

  • Serious Games at Westminster
  • Distributed and Intelligent Systems

In brief

Research areas

Human Computer Interaction, User Experience Design, Mobile Application Design, Virtual Reality in Education and Cultural Heritage, Augmented Reality, Serious Games.

Supervision interests

Advanced Interfaces, Serious Games, Mobile Application Design, Virtual Reality System Design, Augmented Reality