Peter Bath’s interest in information science and health informatics developed at the end of his first degree in Applied Biology, when he came to Sheffield in 1990 to study for the MSc in Information Studies in the Department of Information Studies. Following his MSc, he studied for a PhD in chemical structure handling under the supervision of Professor Peter Willett and Dr. Frank Allen (Cambridge). He was appointed Research Fellow (1994-1996), then Lecturer (1996-2000), in Information Science in the Sheffield Institute for Studies on Ageing (SISA) at the University of Sheffield. He re-joined the Department of Information Studies in 2000, when he was appointed Lecturer in Health Informatics to set up the new MSc in Health Informatics programme and became Head of the Health Informatics Research Group. Peter was appointed Professor of Health Informatics in the Information School in 2013 and in September 2016 be was appointed Head of the Information School. Peter was Principal Investigator for £1.03M multi-centre grant from the UK Economic and Social Rearch Council for a project “A Shared Space and a Space for Sharing”, which explored how people in extreme circumstances share information in online environments (2014-2017). Peter has published 125 papers in peer-reviewed journals, six peer-reviewed book chapters and over 100 peer-reviewed conference papers and abstracts. His work has received over 4,000 citations and his h-index is 36 and his i10-index is 80. Peter is Chair of the University of Sheffield Research Ethics Committee.
“Karen E. Fisher is a Professor at the Information School, and Adjunct Professor in the Communication Department at the University of Washington. She is also a Consultant for UNHCR Jordan, Visiting Professor at the Open Lab, Newcastle University, U.K., and Adjunct Professor, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland. An advocate of humanitarian research, her passion is how HCI-industry-NGO collaborations can improve lives around the world and build futures. Her top priority is working with Syrian youth to increase educational opportunity, livelihoods and social connectedness at the UNHCR Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan. Parallel fieldwork focuses on Arab refugees in Europe, understanding their information behavior and the economic impacts of migration.
Dr. Fisher is renowned for her development and use of theory and methods for understanding information problems, specifically on how people experience information as part of everyday life, with emphasis on the interpersonal aspects and the role of informal social settings or “Information Grounds.” You can read more about Karen’s work from here: https://ischool.uw.edu/people/faculty/profile/fisher
Frans Mäyrä, PhD, is the Professor of Information Studies and Interactive Media, with specialization in digital culture and game studies in the University of Tampere, Finland. Since 2002, he has been heading the University of Tampere Game Research Lab, and he has taught and studied digital culture and games from the early 1990s. He is widely consulted as an expert in socio-cultural issues relating to games, play and playfulness. His research interests range from game cultures, meaning making through playful interaction and online social play, to borderlines, identity, as well as transmedial fantasy and science fiction. He is also the director of the Academy of Finland funded Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies (2018-2025).