QUT | Staff Profiles | Marcus Foth

Name

Professor Marcus Foth

Position(s)

Professor
Creative Industries Faculty,
School of Design Office,
Interactive and Visual Design

Discipline *

Design Practice and Management, Information Systems, Communication and Media Studies

Phone

+61 7 3138 8772

Email

m.foth@qut.edu.au

Location

View location details (QUT staff and student access only)

Identifiers and profiles

Qualifications

PhD (Queensland University of Technology), MA (Queensland University of Technology), BCompSc(Hons) , BMultimedia (Griffith University), JP(Qual.) Qld

Professional memberships and associations

Australian Computer Society (ACS): Fellow (FACS) and Certified Professional (CP)
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI): Senior Member (MACM Sr)
European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies (EUSSET): Member
Design Institute of Australia (DIA) – Associate

Keywords

Urban Informatics, Smart Cities, Interaction Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Sustainability, Urban Computing, Ubiquitous Computing, Community Engagement, Design, Blockchain

* Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008

Marcus Foth is Professor of Urban Informatics in the QUT Design Lab, Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology. He is also an Honorary Professor in the School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University, Denmark.

Professor Foth’s research brings together people, place, and technology. His transdisciplinary work is at the international forefront of human-computer interaction research and development with a focus on smart cities, community engagement, media architecture, internet studies, ubiquitous computing, and sustainability.

Professor Foth founded the Urban Informatics Research Lab in 2006 and the QUT Design Lab in 2016. Ahead of their time and before the term “smart cities” became popular, the lab pioneered a new field of study and practice: Urban informatics examines people creating, applying and using information and communication technology and data in cities and urban environments.

Professor Foth has received over $5 million in national competitive grants and industry funding. He received a Queensland Young Tall Poppy Science Award 2013, and was inducted by the planning, design and development site Planetizen to the world’s top 25 leading thinkers and innovators in the field of urban planning and technology.

In 2015, in collaboration with the Open Data Institute Queensland, Professor Foth brought the international Open and Agile Smart Cities (OASC) network to Australia with the goal of implementing open standards and creating an open smart city market based on the needs of cities and communities.

In 2017, the Australian Computer Society (ACS) made Professor Foth a fellow for “a sustained and distinguished contribution to the field of computer science. Foth is the international thought leader who coined the term urban informatics – now adopted by universities and industry worldwide. Foth’s work makes clear how academic research can successfully respond to societal challenges.”

In 2017, Professor Foth has also been appointed to the Built Environment Task Force of the Smart Cities Council Australia / New Zealand and the Infrastructure Innovation Task Force of the Queensland Department of Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning.

Professor Foth has authored and co-authored over 180 publications in journals, edited books, and conference proceedings. He is the editor of the Handbook of Research on Urban Informatics (IGI 2009), co-author of Action Research and New Media (Hampton Press 2009), co-editor of From Social Butterfly to Engaged Citizen (MIT Press 2011), Eat, Cook, Grow: Mixing Human-Computer Interactions with Human-Food Interactions (MIT Press 2014), Citizen’s Right to the Digital City (Springer, 2015), and Digital Participation through Social Living Labs (Chandos, 2018).

Professor Foth chaired or co-chaired the Oxford Internet Institute’s Summer Doctoral Programme 2009, OZCHI 2009, the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies (C&T) 2011, FoodCHI 2014, and the ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference 2016.

Professor Foth is an ACM Distinguished Speaker and has been giving invited keynote talks and presentations at leading research institutions, including Aalto University Helsinki, Aarhus University, Harvard University, IT University of Copenhagen, KAIST, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, MIT, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Tsinghua University, University of Oulu, University of Oxford.

Previous Appointments

2016 – 2017: Foundation Director, QUT Design Lab
2013: Professor in Residence, Computer Science & Engineering, University of Oulu, Finland
2013: Visiting Professor, Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
2011: Australian Business Foundation Research Fellow on Innovation and Cultural Industries, sponsored by the Aurora Foundation
2009 – 2011: Smart Futures Fellow, Queensland Government, co-sponsored by National ICT Australia (NICTA)
2009 – 2011: QUT Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow
2007: Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK
2006 – 2008: ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellow

http://aoir.org/

This information has been contributed by Professor Marcus Foth.

Member of Editorial and Advisory Boards

Adaptive Environments (Springer book series)
AI & Society – Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Communication (Springer)
Big Data & Society (Sage)
Computers, Environment and Urban Systems (Elsevier)
Journal of Community Informatics

Conference Chair

Conference chair: ACM SIGCHI Designing Interactive Systems (DIS’16), Brisbane
Conference chair: 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, C&T 2011, Brisbane
Conference chair: OZCHI 2009, Melbourne: 21st Conference of the Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group (CHISIG) of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFESA)
Academic program chair: Making Links conferences, 2007 – 2010
Co-chair: Oxford Internet Institute Summer Doctoral Programme 2009, Brisbane
Invited faculty member: Oxford Internet Institute Summer Doctoral Programme, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School, Boston, 2007

Committee Positions

ACM SIGCHI Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) – steering committee member 2016 onwards
Open UBI Oulu, University of Oulu, Finland – scientific advisory board member 2013 onwards
UrbanIxD, Europe – scientific advisory board member 2013 – 2014
Queensland Open Data Forum – steering committee member 2013
Queensland Government Precinct Redevelopment – community reference group member 2013
Elected Member of the executive board: Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), 2007 – 2009

Jury and Assessment Duties

Australian Computer Society (ACS) Queensland ICT Awards – chair of the judging panel: Green ICT (Corporate), 2009, 2010
Australian Research Council – international reader and ERA reviewer
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK – grant ssessor
European Science Foundation (ESF) – grant assessor
Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Ministry of Education and Science, Portugal – grant assessor
iAwards Australia – judge 2011, 2012, 2013
K. U. Leuven (Research Council), Belgium – grant assessor
Ministry of Science and Innovation (MSI), New Zealand – grant assessor
NWO Council for the Social Sciences, The Netherlands – grant assessor
OZCHI 24h Student Design Challenge – judge 2009, 2011, 2012
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) – grant assessor
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) – grant assessor
United Arab Emirates University, College of IT Promotion Committee – external reviewer
University of Lugano (Research Commission), Switzerland – grant assessor
VicHealth – grant assessor
Vienna Business Agency, Austria – jury member of Wiennovation – Creative Industries Vienna 2002

Review Experience
Journals

Ain Shams Engineering Journal (Elsevier)
Australian Planner (Routledge)
Computers in Entertainment (ACM)
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies (Sage)
Digital Creativity (Routledge)
Environment and Behavior (Sage)
Environment and Planning (Pion)
Fibreculture Journal (OHP)
Future Internet (MDPI)
Futures (Elsevier)
Information, Communication & Society (Routledge)
Information Systems Journal (Blackwell)
Interacting with Computers (Oxford University Press)
International Journal of Communication (USC Annenberg Press)
International Journal of Cultural Studies (Sage)
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (Elsevier)
Journal of Consumer Culture (Sage)
Journal of Location Based Services (Taylor & Francis)
Journal of Planning Literature (Sage)
Journal of Services Marketing (Emerald)
Journal of the American Planning Association (Taylor & Francis)
Journal of Urban Technology (Routledge)
Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy (MIA) (University of Queensland)
New Media & Society (Sage)
Pervasive and Mobile Computing (Elsevier)
Pervasive Computing (IEEE)
Planning Practice and Research (Routledge)
Policy & Internet (Berkeley Electronic Press)
Technological Forecasting & Social Change (Elsevier)
Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM)
Visual Communication (Sage)

Conferences

Aarhus 2015: The fifth decennial Aarhus conference – program committee 2015
Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) Internet Research (IR)
Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA)
British HCI
Communities & Technologies (C&T) – program committee 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, conference chair 2011, program committee 2015, 2017
Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
Cumulus: Conference of the International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media – program committee 2015
Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) – program committee 2010, program committee associate chair 2012, 2014, conference chair 2016
Engaging Data: First International Forum on the Application and Management of Personal Electronic Information, MIT, Boston – program committee 2009
Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)
Interact: IFIP TC13 Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
International Symposium on Pervasive Displays (PerDis) – program committee 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017
Media Architecture Biennale – program committee 2012, 2014
MediaCities – program committee 2013, 2015
Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia (MUM) – program committee 2011, 2012, 2013
Mobile HCI
Online Deliberation (OD), Leeds, UK – program committee 2010
OZCHI: Conference of the Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group (CHISIG) of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFESA) – social chair 2008, conference chair 2009
Participatory Design Conference (PDC)
Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp)
Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI) – program committee associate chair 2014, 2015

Workshops

Aesthetic Intelligence (AxI) workshop at the International Joint Conference on Ambient Intelligence (AmI) – program committee 2011, 2012, 2013
City Labs workshop at the 6th International Conference on Social Informatics(SocInfo) – program committee 2014
Cloud Computing, HCI, & Design: Sustainability and Social Impacts workshop at CloudCom 2010 – program committee 2010
Collaboration: Human-Centered Issues & Interactivity Design workshop at Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS) – program committee 2011
Community Practices and Locative Media workshop at Mobile HCI 2009 – program committee 2009
Digital Cities workshop at the Communities & Technologies (C&T) conference – co-chair 2007, 2009, program committee 2011, 2013, co-chair 2015
Do-It-Yourself Networking: An Interdisciplinary Approach workshop at MobiSys 2015– program committee
People Centered Smart Territories: Design, Learning and Analytics workshop at the Smart City Exhibition 2013 – program committee
PD-Apps: Workshop on Developing Applications for Pervasive Display Networks at the International Symposium on Pervasive Displays (PerDis) – program committee 2014
Personalization in Mobile Applications (PeMA) workshop at ACM Recommender Systems (RecSys) – program committee 2011
Pervasive Urban Applications (PURBA) workshop at UbiComp – program committee 2011, 2012, 2013
Social and Mobile Media workshop at the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME) – program committee 2013
Social Car workshop at AutomotiveUI – program committee 2012, 2013
Social Connections in the Urban Space (SocialUrb) workshop at SocialCom – program committee 2011
Symposium on Social and Community Intelligence (SCI) at UbiComp – program committee 2011
Symposium on Urban Informatics: Exploring Smarter Cities – program committee
Urban Internet of Things workshop at Internet of Things – program committee 2010
When the City Meets the Citizen (WCMCW) workshop at the 7th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM) – program committee 2012, 2013

This information has been contributed by Professor Marcus Foth.

Dezuanni ML, Foth M, Mallan KM, Hughes HE, (2018) Digital participation through social living labs: Valuing local knowledge, enhancing engagement, Chandos Publishing
Foth M, Brynskov M, (2016) Participatory action research for civic engagement, Civic media: Technology, design, practice p563-580
Foth M, Brynskov M, Ojala T, (2015) Citizen's right to the digital city: Urban interfaces, activism, and placemaking, Springer
Choi J, Foth M, Hearn G, (2014) Eat, cook, grow: mixing human-computer interactions with human-food interactions, MIT Press
Foth M, Rittenbruch M, Robinson R, Viller SA, (2014) Street Computing : Urban Informatics and City Interfaces, Routledge
Caldwell GA, Foth M, (2014) DIY media architecture: open and participatory approaches to community engagement, Proceedings of the 2nd Media Architecture Biennale Conference: World Cities p1-10
Bilandzic M, Foth M, (2013) Libraries as co-working spaces: Understanding user motivations and perceived barriers to social learning, Library Hi Tech p254-273
Mallan KM, Foth M, Greenaway R, Young G, (2012) Serious playground: using Second Life to engage high school students in urban planning, Learning and Research in Virtual Worlds p107-129
Foth M, Forlano L, Satchell C, Gibbs M, (2011) From Social Butterfly to Engaged Citizen: Urban Informatics, Social Media, Ubiquitous Computing, and Mobile Technology to Support Citizen Engagement, MIT Press
Hearn G, Tacchi JA, Foth M, Lennie J, (2009) Action research and new media: Concepts, methods and cases p1-273

For more publications by this staff member, visit QUT ePrints, the University's research repository.

Awards and recognition

Type: Appointment to State/National/International Reference Group or Government Committees
Reference year: 2018
Details: Appointed Peer-to-Peer Economy and Short-term Letting Industry Reference Group Member by the Queensland Department of Tourism, Major Events, Small Business and the Commonwealth Games. The purpose of the group is to discuss whether the state and local governments should intervene in P2P short-term letting in Queensland. This includes the positive and negative impacts of intervention at the local or state levels, as well as whether governments should play a role in fostering the development of the P2P sector.

Type: Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
Reference year: 2017
Details: Inducted as ACM Distinguished Speaker: The Distinguished Speakers Program is an outreach program of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) that brings distinguished speakers from academia, industry, and government together to give presentations to ACM chapters, members, and the greater IT community in a variety of venues and formats.

Type: Fellowships
Reference year: 2017
Details: The Australian Computer Society (ACS) made me a fellow for "a sustained and distinguished contribution to the field of computer science. Foth is the international thought leader who coined the term urban informatics - now adopted by universities and industry worldwide. Foth's work makes clear how academic research can successfully respond to societal challenges."

Type: Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
Reference year: 2017
Details: Nominated by the Smart Cities Council Australia / New Zealand, I was shortlisted and won the Gold Disruptor Award in the ICT Researcher of the Year category of the ACS Digital Disruptors Awards 2017. The awards honour the efforts of Australia¿s ICT professionals, recognising the teams and individuals at the forefront of digital disruption.

Type: Appointment to State/National/International Reference Group or Government Committees
Reference year: 2017
Details: Appointed Infrastructure Innovation Task Force Member. The State Infrastructure Plan (SIP) is an infrastructure strategy and program that underpins economic growth, supports jobs and creates long-term prosperity for all Queenslanders. The Infrastructure Innovation Taskforce relates to the SIP implementation action 14: to establish a joint industry-government infrastructure innovation taskforce.

Type: Advisor/Consultant for Industry
Reference year: 2017
Details: Appointed to the Built Environment Task Force for Smart Cities by the Smart Cities Council Australia New Zealand (SSCANZ). The Built Environment Task Force provides a forum to advance smart cities dialogue and action in city building processes, and better understand the opportunities at the intersection of technology, intelligent design, and the built and social environments. This in turn will build greater opportunities for the successful procurement and deployment of smart cities solutions that are critical to achieving sustainable city outcomes.

Type: Advisor/Consultant for Industry
Reference year: 2017
Details: Appointed advisory board member by BlueChilli CityConnect smart city startup accelerator and incubator

Type: Visiting Professorships/Fellowships
Reference year: 2016
Details: Appointed Honorary Professor in the School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University, Denmark

Type: Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
Reference year: 2013
Details: Marcus has received a Queensland Young Tall Poppy Science Award 2013 which recognises him as one of the state's best young scientists, combining world-class research with a passionate commitment to communicating science.

Type: Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
Reference year: 2011
Details: Foth was inducted by the planning, design and development site Planetizen to the world's top 25 leading thinkers and innovators in the field of urban planning and technology.

Grants and projects (Category 1: Australian Competitive Grants only)

Title: Fostering digital participation through Living Labs in regional and rural Australian communities
Primary fund type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: LP130100469
Start year: 2014
Keywords: digital citizenship; rural & regional; digital literacy

Title: Eat, Cook, Grow: Ubiquitous Technology for Sustainable Food Culture in the City
Primary fund type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: LP100100232
Start year: 2010
Keywords: Human Computer Interaction; Urban Informatics; Ubiquitous Computing; Mobile Social Interaction

Title: Remembering the Past, Imagining the Future: Embedding Narrative and New Media in Urban Planning
Primary fund type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: LP0882274
Start year: 2008
Keywords: Community Engagement; Community Informatics; New Media; Urban Planning

Title: Swarms in Urban Villages: New Media Design to Augment Social Networks of Residents in Inner-City Developments
Primary fund type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: LP0776341
Start year: 2008
Keywords: Social Networking Systems; New Media; Human Computer Interaction; Community Informatics; Interaction Design; Urban Neighbourhoods

Title: Opportunities of Media and Communication Technology to Support Social Networks of Urban Residents in Mexico, South Africa, UK and Australia
Primary fund type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: LX0776580
Start year: 2007
Keywords: Media Studies; Communication Studies; New Media; Community Informatics; Urban Renewel; Community Networks

Title: New Media in the Urban Village: Mapping Communicative Ecologies and Socio-Economic Innovation in Emerging Inner-City Residential Developments
Primary fund type: CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID: DP0663854
Start year: 2006
Keywords: New Media; Urban Renewal; Social Networks; Inner City Neighbourhoods; Community Informatics; Social Capital

Current supervisions

Humanising the Smart City Co-Creation Redefined in the Pursuit of Systemic Change
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Markus Rittenbruch, Dr Ronald Schroeter
Stand-up Before Start-Up: New Ways to Foster the Social and Spatial Precursors to Innovation
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Greg Hearn
Responding to Gentrification: Novel Approaches from Informal Structures in South Africa and Australia
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Markus Rittenbruch
The Right to the Digital City: The Role of Urban Imaginaries in Participatory Citymaking
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Christine Satchell, Associate Professor Peta Mitchell
Re-designing interfaces between nature, the public and policy: the role of the creative producer.
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Gavin Sade
Intermediation as Practice: Joining the dots between community, culture and commerce
Professional Doctorate, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Greg Hearn
Do Touch: The Impact of Tangible Interaction on Situated Community Engagement
Masters by Research, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Jared Donovan, Associate Professor Markus Rittenbruch

Awards and recognition

Grants and projects (Category 1: Australian Competitive Grants only)

Current supervisions

Completed supervisions (Doctorate)