About me
Brief biography
I have completed my PhD at UCL Interaction Centre. My PhD research investigated how behaviour change apps could go beyond standard tracking and reminders to effectively facilitate the formation of medication habits by taking advantage of contextual cues and daily routines. My work was affiliated with the CHI+MED project that focused on improving the usability of medical devices.
I have an MSc in Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics from UCL and a BSc in Computer Science from AHE in Łódź, Poland. My previous work explored ergonomic issues related to the use of tablet computers in an office environment. I also have several years of industry experience. Before starting my PhD, I worked as a freelance UX Designer and Business Intelligence Analyst at a large media company. I also co-founded Knry, an innovation startup that worked together with firefighters to develop an interactive wearable safety system.
I read a lot, like to punch things (I have a black belt in Choi Kwang Do), lift things, climb things and eat unreasonable amounts of thi… cake. If you have a yellow dog, I want to be your friend.
Publications
You can find my full list of publications on the publications page or on Google Scholar.
Media presence
I'm happy to talk to media about technologies for behaviour change and habit formation, ethical design, and the dark side of digital health technology. Email me or message me on Twitter.
- eWorkLife. Podcast interview with the focus on turning random ideas into helpful things, everyday habits and doing a PhD after failing an undegrad degree twice. June 2021. [Soundcloud link]
- Atomic Habits. Radio interview on habits and technology for the Drive Time programme on Voice of Islam radio. February 2021.[Soundcloud link]
- Ethical web design. Tech for Good Live, podcast episode recorded live at Bath Digital Festival. November 2018. [episode page] [Apple Podcasts]
- Designing Health Apps, popular press article for Net Magazine. November 2015. [article url]
Talks and presentations
I reguraly talk about my research at industry events and present my work to the public at festivals. Get in touch if you would like me to talk at your event.
- The Dark Side of Digital Health. Future of Healthcare event during the Pint of Science festival. Bristol, May 2019.
- Ethical web design. Panel discussion organised by Tech For Good Live at Bath Digital Festival, Bath, October 2018.
- Health apps: easy to build, hard to do right. Cambridge Usability, Microsoft Research, Cambridge, June 2015. [view slides]
- People skills in the digital world. Rocket Conf, Birmingham, June 2015.
- Imperfect learning: How embracing mistakes helps us learn new things. Ladies That UX Brighton @ Spring Forward, March 2015.
- Free yourself from perfectionism. Dare Conference, London, September 2014.
- Medication reminder apps: The Bad and The Ugly. UX Brighton - The Health Check, Brighton, April 2014.
- Broken necks and twisted wrists: Responsible design for tablets. Over the Air, Bletchley Park, September 2013.
- Tablets are bad for posture: should we care? UXCampLondon 2013, London, August 2013.
- Using Human Factors methods for UX research. UXCampBrighton 2012, Brighton, December 2012.
- Sex and UX: Researching sensitive topics. UXCampLondon 2012, London, July 2012.
- Touchy feely creepy design. Geeky, London, May 2012. [more about tech mentioned in the talk]
- Mobile UX. Co-presented with Arran Ross-Paterson, UXCampLondon 2011, London, July 2011.
- Storytelling and UX: Role-playing your personas. UXCampLondon 2010, London, April 2010.
Public engagement
- Wearable technology and Digital Health. #WomenInSTEM conference. Redmaids’ High School for girls, Bristol. Co-presented with Prof. Ian Craddock. May 2018.
- Habit Cookbook: Helping people develop good work habits, Focus On The Positive public engagement event, UCL and U3A. November 2014.
- Safer medical devices and number magic for children, Brighton Science Festival, Brighton. February 2014.
- Errors during medicine use, public engagement workshop with older adults organised by UCL School of Pharmacy, London. July 2013. [view related publication]
Invited talks and seminars
- Integrating the Digital and the Traditional to Deliver Therapy for Depression: User-Centred Design Study. UCLIC Seminar. UCL. Remote presentation. November 2020.
- Integrating the Digital and the Traditional to Deliver Therapy for Depression: Lessons from a Pragmatic Study. Irish CHI online event. SIGCHI Ireland chapter. Remote presentation. June 2020.
- Designing a platform for delivering integrated therapy for depression. Challenges and… more challenges. Active Minds Workshop. Queen Elizabeth Teaching and Learning Centre, Glasgow, June 2018.
- Reviewing health and wellbeing apps: approaches and challenges. 1st International App Evaluation Workshop. University College London, London, December 2017.
- Designing for obsolescence: How to support the formation of healthy habits with technology. HCI seminar, Birmingham University, Birmingham, November 2017.
- Designing for obsolescence: How to support the formation of healthy habits with technology. HCI seminar, University College Dublin, Ireland, October 2017.
- Designing adherence apps that support everyday remembering. Joint Medicines Use & Safety and Community Health Services Meeting, NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service, Leeds, April 2017.
- Supporting medication adherence by facilitating the formation of medication habits. UCL Behaviour Change Clinic with Department of Health Behavioural Insight Team, London, July 2016.
- Forming healthy habits and leaving the app behind. UCL Centre for Behaviour Change, London, September 2015.
- Supporting medication adherence with smartphone apps, UCL School of Pharmacy, London, September 2015.
- Designing smartphone apps that support habit formation. UCL Centre for Behaviour Change, London, December 2014.
- Evaluating smartphone apps. UCL eHealth Unit, London, September 2014.
- “Did you take your Pill after breakfast?” How smartphone apps can support the creation of medication-taking habits. Health Informatics Seminar, BCS Scotland & University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, August 2014. [notes from the seminar]
Awards and Funding
2021 - Stawarz K, Ahmed N, Sparkes V, Verdezoto Dias N. Developing affordable wearables for upper limb function rehabilitation in Bangladesh. £26,129 awarded by GCRF, Cardiff University.
2020 - Collins E, Stawarz K, Morgan P. Exploring the impact of lockdown and remote work on cybersecurity practices of office workers. £3,622 awarded by IROHMS, Cardiff University.
2019 - Stawarz K, Alexander L, Western M, Carlin A, Wijekoon A. Creating digital technology to support exercise snacking for pre-frail older adults in the home setting Prize awarded for £8,565 funded by the GetAMoveOn Network+ through EPSRC grant EP/N027299/1.
2019 - Forbes CC, Western M, Stawarz K, Harrison D. Using Ecological Momentary Assessments (EMAs) to understand the impact of wearable technology on physical activity initiation and habit formation among people living beyond cancer. Prize awarded for £5,755 funded by the GetAMoveOn Network+ through EPSRC grant EP/N027299/1.
2019 - Female Leadership Initiative (FLi). Funding to attend a series of workshops and networking events for women in academia.
2019 - GetAMoveOn Fellowship Programme. Funding to attend a series of workshops and networking events for researchers working in a digital health domain.
2018 – University of Bristol, Faculty of Engineering funding to support two summer interns (£3500 to support a 6-week and an 8-week internship)
2018 – EPSRC Workshop on Building a Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing Community
2015 – UBIHEALTH Research Visit Exchange Funding (€2000 for 2 months)
2014 – UBIHEALTH Winter School in Ubiquitous Computing Funding
Achievements
2015 – Nominated for the UCL Student Choice Teaching Awards
2013 – Ulf Aberg Award for the best postgraduate student project in Ergonomics and Human Factors, CIHFE. [download dissertation] [more about the project]
2012 – Joint first prize for the best research project, Orange HCI-E MSc Project Prize 2011/12
2012 – Semi-finalist, CHI 2012 Student Design Competition: “Silka: A Domestic Technology to Mediate the Threshold between Connection and Solitude”. [more about the project]
2011 – Finalist, Institute of Human Factors and Ergonomics, Student Conference 2011: Mobile App Competition. [more about the app]
Teaching
Invited lectures
- Designing Accessible Emerging Technologies, Design and Services for Inclusion module, MSc in Product and Service Design, Universidade do Minho, Portugal (2021)
- The Dark Side of Behaviour Change. Health Technology module, University of Bath (2019-2020)
- The Dark Side of Behaviour Change. Computer Science in Society module, MSc in Computer Science, University of Bristol (2019)
- Designing an experiment. Human-Computer Interaction module, BSc and MSc in Computer Science, University of Bristol (2017)
- Designing everyday behaviour change technologies. Behaviour Change: An Interdisciplinary Approach module, BSc in Psychology, UCL (2014, 2015)
- Evaluating health-related smartphone apps. Research Methods module, MSc in Health Informatics, UCL (2014)
- Smiling robots and vibrating helmets: Sketching and prototyping in UX Design. Design Practice module, MSc in Human-Computer Interaction, UCL (2014)
Modules and topics
I've been involved in teaching user-centred design to undergraduate Computer Science students. On the graduate level, I've been teaching ergonomics and human factors, HCI, prototyping and study/evaluation design.
Currently I'm a module leader for Emerging Technologies module, which is part of the Applied Software Engineering course at National Software Academy, Cardiff University.
Project supervision
I'm always happy to supervise undergraduate and graduate projects related to health and wellbeing technologies. In the past I supervised the following students:
- Mincen Zhang (2020, MSc) - co-designing a stress reduction app for supporting people during lockdows. Co-supervised with Dr Daniel Finnegan.
- Jia-Jhang Syu (2018, MSc) – smart shoes to encourage walking and show daily step goal progress.
- James Walters (2017, MSc) – developing an app for managing mental health and wellbeing.
- Harry Mumford-Turner (2017, MSc) – evaluating the impact of different types of rewards provided by a habit formation chatbot. Co-supervised with Dr Oussama Metatla.
- Zhiyang Zhang (2017, BSc) – exploring how screen-based break reminders could be redesigned to encourage more frequent breaks.
- Senthuran Subramaniam (2017, BSc) - olfactory reminders to reduce sedentary behaviour.
- Pornpong Soponsakulrat (2016, MSc) – the effectiveness of implementation intention reminders in supporting physical exercise habits.
- Wen Jie Lo (2015, MSc) – impact different modalities of screen-based reminders that encourage taking breaks from a computer.
- Simrita Shaheed (2015, MSc) – the impact of social positive reinforcement on supporting the formation of health-related habits. Co-supervised with Prof Anna Cox. Project was awarded a distinction.
Summer internships
Occasionally I supervise interns working on projects related to health, wellbeing, habits, behaviour change. Recent projects include:
- Smart mat for supporting "exercise snacking" at home for older adults (Josh Tucker, 2020)
- Punchable Interfaces for martial arts training (Juan Quintero Ovalle, 2018)
- An interactive device to support habit formation with audio, visual and haptic feedback (Rachel Jeffries-Harris, 2018; co-supervised with Dr Oussama Metatla)
Academic service
Committees
- CHI 2020, Data & PCS Chair, member of the Data Team
- CHI 2019, Assistant to Technical Programme Chairs
- Associate Chair for DIS 2019, 2021
- Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research, Digital Health Strand
- Associate Chair for CHI Late-Breaking Work 2017
- Programme committee member: Digital Health 2016 & 2017, CHI+MED symposium 2015
- Competitions: UCL Green Technology Competition 2015 committee member, CHI+MED games competition
Peer review
- Grant proposals: UKRI, MRC
- Journals: JMIR, IJHCS, BMC Psychology
- Conferences: CHI, Interact, CHI Play, DIS, DH, C&T, Pervasive Health, Mobile HCI
- Received special recognition for “exceptional reviews” at CHIPlay 2015 and CHI 2016 & 2017
University service
- Associate Editor, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (2021)
- Member of the School of Computer Science and Informations Ethics Commitee, Cardiff University (2021)
- Member of the Faculty Research Ethics Committee, Faculty of Engineering, University of Bristol (2018-2020)
- Organised internal CHI reviews and paper writing workshops (since 2017)
- Organised and facilitated weekly team meetings at Bristol Interaction Group (2017, 2018)
- PhD representative for UCL Interaction Centre (2014, 2015)
- UCL Interaction Centre's Student Green Champion (2014, 2015)
- Organised UCL Interaction Centre's PhD Showcase (2014, 2015)
- Mentoring new PhD students (since 2013)