Touch. The sensation, the loss of it and gaining it back. Finding ways to keep in touch with those that need it most. Making the most of digital technologies and language to communicate - find out more in the very first episode of Season 2!
ACT 1 - from 01.25 - 09.00
Prof Carey Jewitt is Professor of Learning and Technology at the UCL Institute of Education (IOE) and works with the UCL Knowledge Lab. Her research explores how technologies shape the ways that people interact and communicate. Carey looks beyond language alone to understand the multimodal character of interaction. Her current five-year ERC Consolidator project IN-TOUCH investigates digital touch communication.
Lili Golmohammadi is a doctoral researcher attached to In-Touch. Her work explores connections between loneliness, touch and emerging touch technologies. In this podcast, she discusses moving her research online, as well the ‘touchy vocab’ – one of the tools she developed to help participants think and talk about touch. You can read more about her work here.
ACT 2 - from 09.00 - 17.50
Alessia Qiu is a second-year BSc Natural Sciences student at UCL. She is Chinese, born in Italy, grew up in Spain, lived in Brussels and now the United Kingdom. She speaks multiple languages and used her talents to teach elderly people learn Spanish during the pandemic. She says, "Keeping in touch during these strage times can be so refreshing sometimes!"
ACT 3 - from 17.50 - 23.37
Dr Helge A Wurdemann is an electrical engineer and started his studies with a focus on mechatronics and robotics in the medical field at the Leibniz University of Hanover. His PhD project started in late 2008 at the Centre for Robotics Research, King’s College London and was funded by the EPSRC. From 2012 to 2015, Dr Wurdemann was a Research Associate, EU Project Manager and Leader of the Haptics Lab and Soft Robotics Lab at the Centre for Robotics Research, King’s College London. In January 2016, he joined UCL Mechanical Engineering as Lecturer in Medical Devices.
Helge's research, 'Making the Feeling of Touch Accessible to All', won the highest number of votes from the #MadeAtUCL campaign for the public’s favourite UCL breakthrough stories.
Presented by Cassidy Martin and edited by Cerys Bradley
