Associate Professor
Laurianne Sitbon
Faculty of Science,
School of Computer Science
Biography
I am a Future Fellow of the Australian Research Council (ARC), and associate professor in the school of Computer Science at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia. I started her academic career initiating QUT’s undergraduate and postgraduate students to the joys of search engine technologies, including data mining and natural language processing. My research expertise spans human computer interactions (with a focus on co-design and cognitive accessibility), natural language processing (with a focus on semantics), and information retrieval.My current projects include how to support people with intellectual disability in the selection of visuals (eg. emojis) for communicating, how systems can use visuals (eg. emojis) to better communicate with people with intellectual disability, how to investigate the requirements of multi-modal conversational systems that can best support the needs of people with intellectual disability, and more generally how people, such as experts, can "converse" with systems, which analyse data and make predictions, to assist them in making decisions.
I obtained my Masters of Science and Engineering from the University of Technology of Belfort-Montbeliard in France and my PhD in Computer Science from the University of Avignon in France
Personal details
Positions
- ARC Future Fellow
Faculty of Science,
School of Computer Science - Associate Professor
Faculty of Science,
School of Computer Science
Keywords
Computer Human Interactions, Accessibility, Natural Language Processing, Semantic Processing, Information Retrieval, Intellectual Disability, Neurodiversity, Co-design, Communication Technologies, Assistive Technology
Research field
Other Information and Computing Sciences, Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing, Library and Information Studies
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- PhD
- MSc (Other)
- MScEng (Universite De Franche-Comte)
Professional memberships and associations
Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Special Interest Groups in Computer Human Interactions (SIGCHI) and in Accessible Computing (SIGACCESS).
Teaching
Unit Design and re-design
- 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 - Advanced Information Storage and Retrieval IFN647, in the Master of IT (IN20), 60 to 140 students, QUT
- 2017, 2018 - Databases IFB130 (scaling up to 1,000 students, starting a Peer Program within the unit)
- 2015, 2019 – Data Manipulation IFN509, transition unit (IN20 Master of IT curriculum, 40 students), QUT
Project supervision
Coursework projects (Engineering Honours or master of IT). Examples include:
- 2023 Magic mirrors for ambient learning and independent living
- 2022 - A Voice Assistant to Promote Independence
- 2021 - Designing a Pictorial Communication Web Application With People Who Have Intellectual Disabilities
- 2021 - Building gamified application to support gardening activities
- 2020 - An investigation of IoT implementation into disability inclusion projects in rural Cambodia (with Engineers without Borders)
Experience
Assoc. Prof. Sitbon is partnering with the Endeavour Foundation, a Queensland-based organisation supporting "people with an intellectual disability to live their best life" through a research project, as well as to offer QUT students meaningful project opportunities. These projects benefit people supported by Endeavour Foundation in many ways, informing practices, policies, technology design, but also providing a space for meaningful encounters for all involved.
Publications
- Sitbon, L., Favre, B., Brereton, M., Koplick, S. & Fell, L. (2020). Engaging the abilities of participants with intellectual disabilityin IIR research. CHIIR '20: Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/198848
- Bayor, A., Brereton, M., Sitbon, L., Ploderer, B., Bircanin, F., Favre, B. & Koplick, S. (2021). Toward a Competency-based Approach to Co-designing Technologies with People with Intellectual Disability. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing, 14(2). https://eprints.qut.edu.au/212340
- Bircanin, F., Brereton, M., Sitbon, L., Ploderer, B., Bayor, A. & Koplick, S. (2021). Including adults with severe intellectual disabilities in co-design through active support. CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/212030
- Wilson, C., Sitbon, L., Ploderer, B., Opie, J. & Brereton, M. (2020). Self-expression by design: Co-designing the ExpressiBall with minimally-verbal children on the autism spectrum. CHI 2020 - Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–13. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/200894
- Shackell, C. & Sitbon, L. (2020). Computational opposition analysis using word embeddings: A method for strategising resonant informal argument. Argument and Computation, 10(3), 301–317. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/132715
- Rajapakse, S., Brereton, M. & Sitbon, L. (2021). A respectful design approach to facilitate codesign with people with cognitive or sensory impairments and makers. CoDesign, 17(2), 159–187. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/132716
- Sitbon, L., Bayor, A., Bircanin, F., Koplick, S. & Brereton, M. (2018). An exploration of how people with intellectual disability engage with online information retrieval. Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–6. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/122107
- Kholghi, M., Sitbon, L., Zuccon, G. & Nguyen, A. (2016). Active learning: a step towards automating medical concept extraction. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA, 23(2), 289–296. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/85672
- Bruza, P., Kitto, K., Ramm, B. & Sitbon, L. (2015). A probabilistic framework for analysing the compositionality of conceptual combinations. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 67, 26–38. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/85144
- Brereton, M., Sitbon, L., Abdullah, M., Vanderberg, M. & Koplick, S. (2015). Design after design to bridge between people living with cognitive or sensory impairments, their friends and proxies. CoDesign, 11(1), 4–20. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/78487
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Laurianne, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Selected research projects
- Title
- A Pictorial Communication Framework for Inclusion
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- FT190100855
- Start year
- 2020
- Keywords
- Title
- Human-Machine Teaming:Designing Synergistic Learning of Humans and Machines
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- DP200103582
- Start year
- 2020
- Keywords
- Title
- New Information Access Technologies for People with Intellectual Disability
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- LP160100800
- Start year
- 2016
- Keywords
- Title
- Framing authentic assessment of service learning within an information technology curriculum
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- SD15-5151
- Start year
- 2015
- Keywords
- Assessment And Feedback Practices; Information Technology; Personal Development; Service Learning
Projects listed above are funded by Australian Competitive Grants. Projects funded from other sources are not listed due to confidentiality agreements.
Supervision
Current supervisions
- Co-Designing Multimodal Experiences with People with Intellectual Disability and Social Robots in Supported Environments
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Adjunct Professor Bouchra Senadji - Socially Connecting Adults with Intellectual Disabilities Through Inclusive CoDesign of Tangible and Visual Technology
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Margot Brereton - A Framework for Effective Mutual Learning of Humans and Machines in Radiology
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Margot Brereton, Professor David Lovell, Adjunct Professor Andrew Bradley
Completed supervisions (Doctorate)
- People with intellectual disability and online health information: eLearning for better engagement (2023)
- Co-Designing with Adults with Moderate to Severe Intellectual Disabilities to Enable Active Communication Technology Use (2022)
- Crafting and connecting: Co-designing technologies with older adult crafters to promote family connections (2022)
- Leveraging Social Media to Co-Design Support for Developing Life Skills Among Young Adults with Intellectual Disability (2022)
- Co-Design Beyond Words with Minimally-Verbal Children on the Autism Spectrum (2021)
- Analogical Frames by Constraint Satisfaction (2020)
- Finite Semiotics: A New Theory of Semiotics With Applications to Information Technology (2019)
- Making Collaborations to Design Personalised Technologies with People with an Intellectual Disability (2018)
- Smart Sampling of Environmental Audio Recordings for Biodiversity Monitoring (2018)
- Active Learning for Concept Extraction from Clinical Free Text (2017)