Professor R.M. Whitaker

Head of School
Professor of Mobile and Social Computing

Contact Details

Computer Science & Informatics,
Cardiff University,
Queen's Buildings,
5 The Parade, Roath,
Cardiff CF24 3AA, UK

Email:

Phone: +44 (0) 29 20876999
Fax: +44 (0) 29 20874598

Extension Number: 76999
Room Number: N/2.09a

Research Interests

Smartphones are the cornerstone of modern human centric computing - millions of them are persistently carried and intimately connected with their owner's activity like no other computer has ever been. Through this platform we have innovative forms of participation, new ways to interact and greater visibility of human behaviour, both for individuals and as a collective. My research focuses on understanding and modelling our use of smartphones, social systems and mobile networks to support potentially disruptive future technologies and applications. This includes three areas:

• Social analytics: discovery and classification of patterns concerning human mobility, social networks, spatial context, preference for content provision and knowledge acquisition;
• Emergent and collective traits: social simulations concerning the evolution of useful socio-technical phenomenon such as trust, cooperation and well-being;
• Supporting networks and infrastructure: intelligent techniques to deploy mobile networks including cellular systems, peer-to-peer networks and opportunistic networks.