Owen Conlan

Biography

Prof. Owen Conlan is an internationally recognised researcher and leader in the fields of User Modelling, Adaptation, Personalisation and Adaptive Hypermedia research. He has a h-index of 21 and has authored 110+ peer-reviewed and high impact publications (13 journal, 90 conference, 3 book chapters, 3 edited book proceedings). To date Owen has been directly awarded over €4.3m in research funding (as PI) and has been associated with grants generating over €32m (as a Co-PI). He has proven research leadership and has been awarded competitive research projects in programmes such as European Commission FP5/6/7 (ELEKTRA, 80Days, iClass and CULTURA, which I coordinated, projects), Science Foundation Ireland Principal Investigator Awards (AMAS project), SFI CSET/Centres (CNGL and ADAPT Centres), and several other commercialisation awards, namely SFI and Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation awards (wripl and EmpowerTheUser spin-outs). Through these projects Owen has realised significant scientific, societal and economic impact. In brief Owen has - . proposed, coordinated and delivered high impact research projects (15+ projects; directly awarded over €4.5m as PI and over €32m as Co-PI) across a variety of national and international funding mechanisms. Through these experiences I have accrued all of the personnel, consortium and financial management skills needed to oversee large-scale research projects. Moreover, as the scientific lead of these projects I have been able to develop my leadership skills as well as promoting my research agenda. . authored and published 110+ peer-reviewed and high-impact publications, including 13 journal articles and 90 conference papers. I have developed the requisite skills to write such impactful works through acting as a reviewer, meta-reviewer and track leader on the key journals and conferences in my discipline. I have an h-index score of 21 (h-index measures research impact of publications; 21 is an excellent score for someone at my career stage). . supervised and guided cutting-edge student research as witnessed by supporting 7 PhD and over 20 MSc students to completion. I am currently supervising another 7 PhD candidates. Through this experience I have developed individual and joint supervision skills, have developed one-on-one personnel management skills and been exposed to a wide range of the supports offered by College for postgraduate students. To complement this experience I have acted as external PhD examiner on four occasions and have acted as internal examiner for over ten theses. . designed, developed and delivered highly innovative teaching programmes having both developed curriculum for individual modules (5 modules) and a complete Masters-level programme (MPhil in Digital Humanities). In my teaching I integrate the novel outputs of my research, namely personalised online learning tools and personalised research environments, to give students the best possible experience. . engaged with and led activities at various levels in College, including being the champion of the Digital Humanities research theme and the co-director of the Digital Humanities Research Centre in TCD. I am also the junior representative for academic staff on the School of Computer Science and Statistics executive. . led major international research activities. In 2014 I was a track leader at the prestigious User Modelling, Adaptation and Personalisation conference (the top conference in my research field) and in 2015 I will be the general chair of that conference, which I have successfully bid to have hosted at Trinity College. I have also proposed, coordinated and led eight international research workshops.

Research Interest

Applied information systems; Artificial Intelligence; Cognitive science; Computer based training; Databases, database management, data mining; Distance Learning; E-Learning; Educational Psychology; Information management; Information Representations; Information Science/Systems; Information systems development; Information Technology; Information technology in education; Innovation in learning; Internet; Internet technologies; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge and data engineering; KNOWLEDGE ENGINEERING; Knowledge Management; Knowledge Representation; LEARNING; Lifelong Learning; Neuroscience and Cognition; Virtual learning environments