Thomas Pederson

Designing systems that change the way we perceive, think, and act in our immediate surroundings

Professor in Information Systems, School of Business, Economics and IT, University West, Sweden.

Manager, Center for sustainability
Research lead, Emerging interaction technologies / Open Lab @ School of Business, Economics and IT; Member of the Research and education board
Research lead, Computer Science unit @ Dept. of Engineering Science; Member of the PhD program council in Production Technology

Scientific commissioner, National Swedish Ethical Review Authority

Steering committee member, NordiCHI bi-annual conference on Human-Computer Interaction

Campus office: Gustava Melins gata 2, Trollhättan, Sweden. Room J226

Production Technology Center office: Nohabgatan 14, Trollhättan, Room N2-201

+46 70 654 6548

thomas /dot/ pederson /at/ hv /dot/ se

Research interests

I explore the development of mobile and wearable systems that seamlessly blend with and support ongoing real-world tasks (c.f. Mark Weiser's vision of calm computing) and give rise to what we refer to as an egocentric interaction paradigm.

I believe that human perception, cognition, and action capabilities are defining factors for future wearable systems that talk to us in increasingly subtle ways through our peripheral attention.

Keywords: Human-Computer Interaction, Peripheral Interaction, Ubiquitous Computing, Wearable Computers, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence.

Perception, cognition, action in wearable HCI (Jalaliniya & Pederson, 2015).

A surgeon using a Wearable Personal Assistant in simulated surgeries & ward rounds (Jalaliniya & Pederson, 2016).

Where is the "desktop" in wearable HCI?

The Situative Space Model (Pederson, Janlert, & Surie, 2011) captures what a specific human agent can perceive and not perceive, reach and not reach, at any given moment in time. This model is for the emerging egocentric interaction paradigm what the virtual desktop is for the PC/WIMP (Window, Icon, Menu, Pointing device) interaction paradigm: more or less everything of interest to a specific human agent is assumed to, and supposed to, happen here.

Breakfast scenario involving mobile, wearable, and embedded interactive devices apart from everyday objects.

The Situative Space Model applied to the breakfast scenario pictured to the left, centered around the person having breakfast (Pederson, Janlert, & Surie, 2011).

Note: section not updated since 2021 -- apologies!

Selected publications

A more complete list is available here. Clicking on the publisher logos will search for my publications directly in their respective digital libraries. Also, check me out in Google Scholar.

Jalaliniya, S., Mardanbegi, D., Pederson, T. (2015). MAGIC pointing for eyewear computers. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM international Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC'15). ACM, New York, NY, 155-158. DOI: 10.1145/2802083.2802094
Jalaliniya, S., Pederson, T., & Houben, S. (2014). Wearable laser pointer versus head-mounted display for tele-guidance applications?. In Proceedings of the 2014 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers: Adjunct Program (ISWC '14 Adjunct). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 193-200. DOI: 10.1145/2641248.2641354
Mardanbegi, D., Witzner Hansen, D., & Pederson, T. (2012). Eye-based head gestures. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 139-146. DOI: 10.1145/2168556.2168578 (***Best paper award***)
Pederson, T., Janlert, L.-E. & Surie, D. (2010). Towards a model for egocentric interaction with physical and virtual objects. In Proceedings of the 6th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Extending Boundaries. ACM Press, pp. 755-758.

Jalaliniya, S., & Pederson, T. (2015). Designing Wearable Personal Assistants for Surgeons: An Egocentric Approach. IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine, vol.14, no.3, pp.22,31, July-Sept. DOI: 10.1109/MPRV.2015.61
Pederson, T., Janlert, L-E., & Surie, D. (2011). Setting the Stage for Mobile Mixed-Reality Computing - A Situative Space Model based on Human Perception. IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 73-83, Oct. 2011. DOI: 10.1109/MPRV.2010.51

Jalaliniya, S., Pederson, T., & Mardanbegi, D. (2017). A Wearable Personal Assistant for Surgeons -- Design, Evaluation, and Future Prospects. EAI Endorsed Transactions on Pervasive Health and Technology, Vol. 3, Issue 12. DOI: 10.4108/eai.7-9-2017.153063

Surie, D., Janlert, L-E., Pederson, T., Roy, D. (2012). Egocentric interaction as a tool for designing ambient ecologies -- The case of the easy ADL ecology. Journal of Pervasive and Mobile Computing, Special Issue on Ambient Ecologies, Elsevier, Vol. 8, Issue 4, pp. 597-613, (2012).

Surie, D., Pederson, T., Lagriffoul, F., Janlert, L.-E., & Sjoelie, D. (2007). Activity Recognition using an Egocentric Perspective of Everyday Objects. In Proceedings of IFIP UIC 2007 Conference on Ubiquitous and Intelligent Computing, Springer LNCS 4611, pp. 246-257. *** Best Paper Award ***
Pederson, T. (2001). Magic Touch: A Simple Object Location Tracking System Enabling the Development of Physical-Virtual Artefacts in Office Environments. Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 5:54-57. Springer Verlag, February 2001.

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Management

For current roles see top of page.
2019-2021 Board member, Faculty of Technology and Society at Malmoe University
2018-2021 Manager of the Egocentric Interaction research group at Malmoe University
2019-2020 Steering committee member of the Data Society research program at Malmoe University
2016-2017 Research manager of the IOTAP Lab
2015-2016 (ITU) Manager of
2015-2016 (ITU) Head of Software Engineering part-time study program

PhD supervision

Ongoing 2021-: Augmented Reality-based Training and Guidance in Production Systems. PhD student Nicole Tobisková.
Ongoing 2021-: Work-Integrated Learning with focus on interactive digital solutions in home care. PhD student Jessica Persson.
2017-2020 Internal examiner of three PhD students at Dept. of Computer Science and Media Technology.
Graduated 2016: Wearable Personal Assistants -- From Vision to Reality. PhD student Shahram Jalaliniya, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Graduated 2012: Egocentric Interaction for Ambient Intelligence. PhD student Dipak Surie, Umeaa University, Sweden.

Projects

For current research projects see Open Lab.
2021- Exploration of hiring discrimination and possibilities for intervention through eye-tracking. Co-funding from the Swedish national research council (VR).
2020-2022 Boosting HCI - PhD student exchange between Malmoe University and Human-Computer Interaction research labs at Rochester Institute of Technology, USA. Co-funded by STINT.
2019- TiMS - The role of tourism in multi-cultural societies. Co-funding from Formas.
2020-2021 Restart - Robot Error Stop Agent Recovery Tool. Co-funding from KK Foundation.
2020-2021 Sustainable manufacturing using wood as material. Co-funding from EU regional fund.
2020-2021 Egocentric Interaction Interventions in a social tabletop game through different levels of Augmented Reality internally funded project of the Egocentric Interaction research group.
2011-2014 iCareNet: Intelligent Context-Aware Systems for Healthcare, Wellness, and Assisted Living. EU FP7 Marie Curie ITN.

Note: section not updated since 2021 -- apologies!

Organizer/editor/reviewer

PC member and/or (meta) reviewer if not noted otherwise

Journals

MDPI Information 2021, editor of special issue on Unconscious Computing through Emerging Wearable Systems.
MDPI Journal of Multimodal Technologies and Interaction 2019
Elsevier International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 2017, 2010
Taylor Francis International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 2017
IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine 2017
Springer Behaviormetrika, associate editor, 2016-
MDPI Sensors Journal 2015
IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems 2015
IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics 2014
ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems (TIIS) 2013, special issue on Activity Recognition for Interaction
IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine 2011, co-editor of special issue on Labeling the World
Springer Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing (JPUC) 2010, special issue on Multimodal Computing

Conferences

BSN: 2014
CHI: 2021, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2011, 2010
CSCW: 2012
HSI: 2010, 2009 (track co-chair)
Interact: 2021 (sub-committee chair)
ITS: 2014, 2012
IUI: 2012
MobileHCI: 2006 (workshop co-organizer)
NordiCHI: 2022, 2020 (workshop co-organizer), 2016, 2014 (workshop co-organizer), 2012 (general conference co-chair), 2010; member of steering committee, 2013-
Percom: 2018
Pervasive: 2011
TEI: 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 (program co-chair)
Ubicomp: 2010 (student volunteer co-chair), 2005 (workshop co-organizer)
UIST: 2015, 2013

Languages

Swedish
English
Italian
German

(In order of expertise.)

External advisor

Funding agencies

Review panel member for the Academy of Finland, Human Factors and Technology calls: 2021 (chair), 2020 (vice chair), 2019, 2017, 2016.
2020: External evaluator for the Singapore National Institute of Education (NIE) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU), ERFP grant applications.
2016: External evaluator for the French National Research Agency ANR. Call: RHU-S (Hospital and academic research in health area).
2010: External evaluator for the Board of the Icelandic Research Fund

PhD committees

2018 Lund University, Sweden, Member of assessment committee for the PhD defense of Haakan Jonsson
2017 Lund University, Sweden, Chair of assessment committee for the PhD defense of Björn A Johnsson
2013 Tromsø University, Norway, 2nd opponent for the PhD defense of Terje Solvoll
2012 Tampere University, Finland, opponent for the PhD defense of Thomas Olsson
2011 Oerebro University, Sweden, opponent for the PhD defense of Jayedur Rashid

Academic employment committees

2018, 2014, 2011: Expert reviewer of applicants for associate/assistant professorship positions at Linneaus University, Vaexjoe, Sweden
2016, 2015: Expert reviewer of applicants for teaching positions at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden

Invited speaker

Industry

2017: Hackathon keynote for Beijer Electronics Products AB, Malmoe: Wearable Systems talking to our unconscious mind.

Academy

2019: Invited talk Wearable persuasive Augmented Reality systems -- a research agenda at Humanities Lab, Lund University.
2016: Invited lecturer at the Spaces, People, and Technologies seminar at University of Fribourg, as part of the Swiss national Smart Living Lab project.
2014: Keynote at the Eyewear workshop at the BSN 2014 conference in Zürich.
2012: Keynote at the Finnish SIGCHI World Usability day event in Tampere.

Popular science

2017: Akademisk kvart, Malmö stadsbibliotek: Kroppsburna datorsystem som talar med vårt omedvetna
2016: Angels and devils secretely communicating with your brain through your body: At OpenITU public event The Good, the Bad and the Robots - Blurring the lines between the living and technology..
2010: Computers out of the office and into the real world. For the national Danish TV show Danskernes Akademi.

Note: section not updated since 2021 -- apologies!

Teaching

PhD/MSc/BSc level

From 1997 until 2021 I have taught on more than 35 different MSc and BSc-level courses mostly related to Computer Science, Interaction Design, and everything in between. Some I have developed from scratch, including:

2022 K0004221 Human-AI Interaction 7.5 ECTS (University West)
2017 DA356A/DA260A Information Design 7.5 ECTS (Malmoe University)
2017 DA157A Introduction to Interaction Design 7.5 ECTS (Malmoe University)
2017 DA606A Interaction Technology 7.5 ECTS (Malmoe University)
2016 DA274A Internet of Things and People 7.5 ECTS (Malmoe University)
2003 TDBC93 Ubiquitous Computing 7.5 ECTS (Umeaa University)

I have also taken part in developing a few PhD courses for larger and smaller groups of PhD students.

MSc Study program development and management

2022 1-year Master’s program (60 ECTS) in Computer Science with specialisation in Autonomous Vehicles, University West
2015-2016 Software Engineering part-time program (60 ECTS), IT University of Copenhagen

Places of work and visits

2021- University West, School of Business, Economics and IT, Trollhaettan, Sweden, Professor in Information Systems
2020-2021 University West, Dept. of Engineering Science, Trollhaettan, Sweden, Guest Professor in Computer Science
2017-2021 Malmoe university, Dept. of Computer Science and Media Technology, Sweden, Professor in Computer Science
2016-2017 Malmoe university, Dept. of Computer Science and Media Technology, Sweden, Senior lecturer
2009-2016 IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Associate professor
2014 University of Konstanz, HCI group, Germany, sabbatical visit (6 months)
2014 Bari University, IVU lab, Italy, visiting scientist (1 week)
2011 Chalmers University, t2i Interaction Lab, Sweden, guest lecturer
2009 Lund University, Computer Science Dept., Sweden, research position (4 months)
2008 Bari University, IVU Lab, Italy, visiting scientist (3 months)
2004 University College Dublin & IBM Dublin, Ireland, invited speaker
2006-2007 Bari University, IVU Lab, Italy, post-doc (2years)
2005 IRISA/INRIA Rennes, ACES research group, France, visiting scientist (2 months)
2004-2008 Umeaa University, Department of Computing Science, Sweden, On and off research assistant and lecturer
1998-2003 Umeaa University, Department of Computing Science, Sweden, PhD student
1997 GMD/Fraunhofer-IPSI, Germany (dissolved in 2006), visiting research assistant (6 months)
1992 Russian Academy of Science, Institute of System Analysis, exchange student (3 weeks)