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Dr Stephann Makri

Senior Lecturer

School of Science & Technology Department of Computer Science

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About

Overview

Dr. Stephann Makri is a Senior Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), at the intersection of HCI and Information Science. He specialises in Human Information Interaction (how people find, interpret and use information on digital information environments - e.g. websites, search engines, digital libraries, social media). His research involves understanding how people interact with information and using this understanding to inform the design of digital information environments to create experiences that are engaging, enriching, exciting and fulfilling. His research aims to empower people to interact with information in ways that preserve their autonomy in thinking and decision-making, minimise and mitigate against information harms (such as overwhelm, addiction, manipulation etc.) and stimulate engagement, curiosity, serendipity and creativity.

Key esteem factors:

• Keynote speaker at Webster Center for Creativity and Innovation World Creativity Week, 2021 (Geneva, Switzerland), OzCHI conference 2018 (Melbourne, Australia), ARCLIB (Association of Architecture Librarians) conference 2015 (Bournemouth, UK) and IRMSS Research Methods conference 2013 (Limerick, Ireland).

• Invited evidence provided to UK Parliamentary inquiry: The Internet: To Regulate or not to Regulate? Evidence referred to in House of Lords (2019). Select Committee on Communications. 2nd Report of Session 2017-19. Regulating in a Digital World. HL Paper 299.

• Invited panel member, The Royal Institution of Great Britain (Ri): ‘Business Success: What’s luck go to do with it?’ (April 2013).

• Best paper award for ‘Designing the unfindable’ paper on serendipitous information encountering in bookshops at INTERACT 2019.

• Emerald Literati ‘Highly Commended Paper’ award 2014 for paper understanding how lawyers keep up to date with digital information. Emerald commented that this was “one of the most impressive pieces of work the team has seen throughout 2014.”

• Review Editor, Journal of the Association of Information Science and Technology (2019-).

• Chair of Research Engagement Committee, Association for Information Science and Technology. 2022-3

• Steering Committee Member, ACM Conference on Human-Information Interaction and Retrieval, 2023-

Grants:

• 2020-24. Understanding UK digital comics information and publishing practices: From creation to consumption. AHRC (Collaborative Doctoral Partnership. PhD co-supervised with the British Library).

• 2019-23. Beneath the archive: Understanding users’ mental models of digital archives to inform user-centred design for humanities research. AHRC (Collaborative Doctoral Partnership. PhD co-supervised with The National Archives).

• 2018-23. Artificial Intelligence for teams: The future of assisted collaborative work. PhD co-supervised with Microsoft Research UK.

• 2017-20. DMINR: Understanding the embedded process of journalists’ news verification practices to inform the design of a news source discovery tool. Google News Initiative.

• 2016-19. Digital publishing technologies and the reader. AHRC (Collaborative Doctoral Partnership. PhD co-supervised with the British Library).

• 2016-17. A user-centred mobile tool for transport information discovery. EPSRC and Innovate UK.

• 2015-16. Streamlining Deposit: An OJS plugin. JISC.

• 2009-10. Understanding lawyers’ and architects’ information behaviour to inform electronic resource evaluation. ESRC.

Books:

• Blandford, A., Furniss, D. & Makri, S. (2016). Qualitative HCI Research: Going Behind the Scenes. Morgan & Claypool. London, UK.

• Race, T. & Makri, S. (2016). Accidental Information Discovery: Cultivating serendipity in the Digital Age. Chandos Publishing.

PhD supervision (completed students):

• Jonathan Day (2017) - Exploring the nature of cognitive resilience strategies.

• Robert Heeley (2017) - A Hybrid machine learning approach to measuring sentiment, credibility and influence on Twitter.

• Carol Butler (2021) - Genres of visibility: What does online interaction mean for fiction authors and readers, and how may an improved awareness of their experiences inform future mediation?

• Lynne Beveridge (2023) - The Impact of Dyslexia on the Online Information-Seeking Behaviour of Undergraduate Students.

PhD supervision (current students):

• Axel Niklasson - Investigating the role of AI in workplace team collaboration (Microsoft-funded PhD studentship)

• Linda Berube - Understanding the user experience of digital comics creation, production and consumption (AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with the British Library)

• Alexandra Leigh - Beyond the Archive: Investigating information work within and beyond traditional archive boundaries (AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with The National Archives).

Key media appearances and research featured in the media:

• Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s ‘Future Tense’ programme

• BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Digital Human’ programme and BBC Radio Solent

• The Sunday Times

• The Daily Mail

• The Huffington Post

• News.com.au

• Emerald Street

• Readers Digest

• El Mercurio, Chile

• Nieman Journalism Lab

• Leader to Leader

• Parade magazine (most widely read magazine in the US)

• Lifehacker Japan

Qualifications

  • PhD Human-Computer Interaction, City, University of London, United Kingdom, 2008
  • MSc Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics, University College London, United Kingdom, 2004
  • BSc (Hons) Business Information Systems, University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, 2003

Postgraduate training

  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, AdvanceHE, United Kingdom

Employment

  • Senior Lecturer, City, University of London, United Kingdom, April 2013 - present
  • Research Associate, University College London, United Kingdom, February 2009 - January 2013
  • Visiting Lecturer, University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, July 2005 - September 2011
  • Lecturer, University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, September 2004 - July 2005

Memberships of professional organisations

  • British Computer Society, September 2013 - present
  • The Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI), April 2013 - present
  • Association for Information Science and Technology, May 2012 - present

Teaching

Approach

Stephann teaches at both Undergraduate and Graduate levels and has taught a variety of Human-Computer Interaction, Information Science and Information Technology courses. His teaching ethos is firmly student-focused and his teaching sessions are interactive and focus on fostering conceptual change. Stephann is also an advocate of innovative teaching methods.

Modules

Information Architecture (module leader)
Information Management (module leader)
Human-Computer Interaction (lecturer)
Research Methods & Professional Issues (guest lecturer)

Research

Research interests

Understanding how digital information is acquired (i.e. both sought and encountered), interpreted and used in the context of peoples' work and everyday lives.

Feeding this understanding into the design of new and improvement of existing digital information environments. This involves designing to better support peoples' information needs, tasks and behaviour and evaluating digital information environments to ensure they are useful and usable.

Media appearances

Research featured on BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Digital Human’ programme (June 2012) and on BBC Radio Solent (November 2012).

Research featured in a variety of print and online media outlets, including The Sunday Times (21st October 2012), The Daily Mail (28th October 2012), The Huffington Post (9th October 2012), News.com.au (30th October 2012), Emerald Street (8th October 2012), PhysOrg (5th October 2012), Soul&Spirit Magazine (January 2013), Red Magazine (April 2013), Healthy Magazine (Sep. 2013), Readers Digest Australia (Oct. 2013), Readers Digest New Zealand (Oct. 2013), Readers Digest Asia (Oct. 2013), Readers Digest Singapore (Oct. 2013), Readers Digest Philippines (Oct. 2013).

Research students

Robert Heeley

Thesis title: TBD

Further information: Current PhD student, joined Oct. 2013

1stsupervisor

2ndsupervisor

  • Axel Niklasson, Research Student

Publications

Publications by category

Books (2)

  • Race, T.M. and Makri, S. (2016). Accidental Information Discovery: Cultivating Serendipity in the Digital Age.
  • Blandford, A., Furniss, D. and Makri, S. (2016). Qualitative HCI Research: Going Behind the Scenes. Springer Science and Business Media LLC.

Chapters (6)

  • Makri, S. and Willson, R. (2025). Current Trends in Information Behavior Research: Expanding Beyond Search, Seeking, Finding and Behavior. Encyclopedia of Libraries, Librarianship, and Information Science (pp. 493-500). Elsevier. ISBN 9780323956901.
  • Blandford, A., Furniss, D. and Makri, S. (2016). Introduction: Behind the scenes. In Blandford, A., Furniss, D. and Makri, S. (Eds.), Qualitative HCI Research: Going Behind the Scenes (pp. 1-6). USA: Morgan and Claypool Publishers. ISBN 9781627057592.
  • Race, T.M. and Makri, S. (2016). Making Room for Serendipity. Accidental Information Discovery (pp. 15-26). Elsevier. ISBN 9781843347507.
  • Makri, S. and Race, T.M. (2016). Serendipity in Current Digital Information Environments. Accidental Information Discovery (pp. 53-80). Elsevier. ISBN 9781843347507.
  • (2016). Serendipity in Future Digital Information Environments. In Accidental Information Discovery (pp. 81-114). Elsevier. ISBN 9781843347507.
  • Race, T.M. and Makri, S. (2016). ACCIDENTAL INFORMATION DISCOVERY Cultivating Serendipity in the Digital Age PREFACE. ACCIDENTAL INFORMATION DISCOVERY: CULTIVATING SERENDIPITY IN THE DIGITAL AGE (pp. XV-XVI). ISBN 9781843347507.

Conference papers and proceedings (53)

Internet publication

Journal articles (42)

Posters (4)

  • Berube, L., Makri, S., Cooke, I., Priego, E. and Wisdom, S. "Webcomics Archive? Now I'm Interested": Comics Readers Seeking Information in Web Archives (Poster). CHIIR '23: ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval, 2023.
  • Day, J., Buchanan, G. and Makri, S. When Things Go Right: Learning from Resilience Strategies. , 2015.
  • Woods, M., Sharples, S., Sun, X., Aylett, R., Stewart, R., Bental, D.... Whittle, J. Understanding Serendipity to Inform Novel Processes, Methods and Technologies for the Researcher. In proceedinga Digital Economy All Hands Conference: Digital Engagement. Newcastle, UK., 2011.
  • Makri, S. Studying Law Students' Information Seeking Behaviour to Inform the Design of Digital Law Libraries. Alicante, Spain, 2006.

Theses/dissertations (3)

Other

  • Erdelez, S., Heinström, J., Makri, S., Björneborn, L., Beheshti, J., Toms, E.... Agarwal, N.K.(2016). Research perspectives on serendipity and information encountering.

    [Wiley]

Professional activities

Editorial activity

  • Guest editor of thematic Issue of Information Research on ‘Information by Chance: Opportunistic Discovery of Information,’ 16(3). Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/16-3..

Events/conferences (4)

  • IRMSS Research Methods conference. Limerick, Ireland (2013).
    Description: Kenote presentation: See right through me: achieving transparency in qualitative research.
  • 75th Annual Meeting of the Association of Information Science and Technology. Baltimore, MD, USA (2012).
    Description: Presentation: Coming across academic social media content serendipitously
  • Dundee Contemporary Arts. Dundee, UK (2012).
    Description: Serendipity in interactive systems
  • The Royal Institution of Great Britain. London, UK (2012).
    Description: Invited panel discussion: Business success: what’s luck got to do with it.

Keynote lecture/speech

  • Keynote presentation at IRMSS Research Methods conference 2013. Limerick, Ireland (2013). Title: See Right Through Me: Achieving Transparency in Qualitative Research

Other (11)

  • Jun 2013 Invited to run a seminar for creative business professionals at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, UK. .
  • Mar 2013 Co-organised ‘Serendipity Salons’ design workshop for design professionals at Future Everything festival and innovation lab, Manchester, UK. .
  • Feb 2013 Invited talk at Soho House member’s club for those in the film, media and creative industries. .
  • Oct 2012 Invited talk to User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA), London, UK. .
  • Jul 2012 Invited to run ‘serendipity stories’ workshop with Extra Special People group, Eastside Projects Gallery, Birmingham, UK. .
  • Oct 2011 Co-organised information interaction research workshop with attendees from FXPal and The British Library. .
  • Jul 2009 Invited to participate in open debate on ’20 Years of the Web,’ BBC Media Centre, London, UK. .
  • Mar 2008 Co-organised information interaction research workshop with attendees from British Telecom. .
  • Feb 2008 Organised and ran a tutorial to LexisNexis Butterworths on user-centred evaluation methods. .
  • Feb 2007 Invited talk on lawyers’ digital information behaviour to partners at systems development team, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, London, UK. .
  • 2006 Provided user-centred consultancy to Marie Curie Cancer Care, United Response, Help the Hospices, LexisNexis Butterworths, The British Library, Paperstone, UCL Management Systems and Library Services, Allianz, the BBC. .