Research

I'm interested in affective human computer interaction, virtual humans and automatic affect recognition systems with a focus on nonverbal communication. Currently, I'm a postdoctoral researcher on Dr. Benjamin Lok's NIH R01 grant (1R01LM010813-01): Neurological Exams Teaching & Evaluation Using Virtual Patients. Details can be found here. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher on Dr. Marco Gillies' EPSRC funded project (EP/H02977X/1): Performance Driven Expressive Virtual Characters. Details can be found here.

Publications

A list of my publications can be found here

Background

I received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Oregon, USA. Several years later I moved to Japan where I received a Masters in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Aizu. I then moved to London where I received a PhD in Computer Science from University College London in 2010. My Masters and PhD research was in the area of Affective Computing.

The UCLIC Database of Affective Postures and Body Movements

As part of my PhD research I was involved in the AffectME project (funded by a Marie Curie International Re-Integration Grant: (MIRG-CT-2006-046434) 2007-2009 (2010)). One outcome of the project was the creation of a database comprising both acted and non-acted motion capture data and avatar images of affective bodily expressions.

If you are interested in obtaining the database which is freely available for academic use, please contact us: alk@cise.ufl.edu or n.berthouze@ucl.ac.uk

Details of the database can be found here


Examples of acted postures    Examples of non acted postures