Shazia Afzal

I am a PhD student with Professor Peter Robinson in the Rainbow Research Group. My research falls within the domain of human-computer interaction and involves using nonverbal behaviour cues like facial expressions and head gestures to interpret a user's affective state. Owing to my interest in educational technology, my research is specifically focused on examining the utility of facial affect analysis in computer-assisted learning environments. I am also interested in studying social responses to affect-sensitive 'intelligent' machines and how they influence subsequent interaction and behaviour. I have a keen interest in the ethics of social computing, issues related to privacy and control and in general, responsibilities of technological change.

I am an active member of Women@CL and the Murray Edwards MCR . I support education in the community and volunteer for various outreach courses. When not working on my PhD, I enjoy learning new languages, reading history, watching BBC iPlayer or just looking out of my window!

Publications

Afzal, S., Robinson, P. (2009). Natural Affect Data - Collection & Annotation in a Learning Context, In Proceedings of Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction (ACII), Amsterdam, Sep 2009

Afzal, S., Sezgin, T.M., Gao, G. & Robinson, P. (2009). Perception of Emotional Expressions in Different Representations Using Facial Feature Points, In Proceedings of Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction (ACII), Amsterdam, Sep 2009

Afzal, S., Morrison, C. & Robinson, P. (2009). Intentional affect: An alternative notion of affective interaction with a machine, In Proceedings of British HCI, Cambridge, UK, Sep 2009

Riek, L., Afzal, S. & Robinson, P. (2009). Do Affect-Sensitive Machines Influence User Behavior?, In Proceedings of the AISB Symposium on The Social Understanding of Artificial Intelligence (SSoAI), Edinburgh, UK, April 2009

Afzal S., Robinson P. (2008). Dispositional Expressivity and HCI, In Proceedings of Workshop on Emotion In HCI, British HCI, Liverpool, UK, Sep, 2008

Riek, L., Afzal S., & Robinson P. (2008). Affect Decoding Measures and Human-Computer Interaction, In Proceedings of Measuring Behaviour (MB), Maastricht, Aug 2008

Afzal S., Robinson P. (2008). An Interface to Simplify Annotation of Emotional Behaviour, In Proceedings of HUMAINE Workshop on Corpora in Emotion Research (LREC), Morocco, May 2008

Afzal S. (2007). Evaluating Learner State from Affective Cues, In Proceedings of Doctoral Consortium of the Intl. Conf. on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII), Lisbon, Sep 2007

Afzal S., Robinson P. (2007). A Study of Affect in Intelligent Tutoring, In Proceedings of Workshop on Modelling and Scaffolding Affective Experiences to Impact Learning, Intl. Conf. on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED), Los Angeles, July 2007