About
Horia A. Maior is a Transitional Assistant Professor in Computer Science based in Horizon Digital Economy, the Mixed Reality Laboratory, and the Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub (TAS) at the University of Nottingham and the co-founder of RatedDoctor.com.
Other work he does includes developing and coordinating community projects as part of Inspire Foundation Charity, where he plays the role of a trustee.
Horia has been named one of the 2019 "Ten Outstanding Young People In the World" (TOYP) by JCI (Junior Chamber International) Romania as a result of his academic, research, as well as the high impact community work focused on education, technology and generally bringing more digital skills to the young people in the community.
With a strong multi-disciplinary and technical profile, with analytical and problem solving skills Horia has developed excellent communication and public speaking skills with over 50 talks at top national and international venues.
He is passionate about empowering others and creating for others, and his recent community work was focused on bringing more digital skills to young people. He has organised and contributed to - small up to large scale - projects, and events, from research to educational programs and workshops for the community.
Research and Teaching
Horia's research is uniquely placed, sitting between Computer Science, Brain Computer Interfaces, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and Human Robot Interaction (HRI). He has developed world leading expertise in using brain and physiological data for HCI and HRI in order to estimate users' stress and mental workload levels during interaction. Evaluating users' capabilities and limitations plays an important role when designing technology that better incorporates users’ needs and limitations.
Alongside his research Horia enjoys teaching, supervising, and generally inspiring students. He has extensive experience teaching Computer Science modules and has done this at multiple institutions.
Selected Research Publication
- Midha, S., Maior H.A., Wilson M.L., Sharples S. Measuring Mental Workload Variations in Office Work Tasks using fNIRS. - Download here -
- Benerradi, J., Maior H.A., Marinescu, A., Close, J., Wilson M.L. Exploring machine learning approaches for classifying mental workload using fNIRS data from HCI tasks. - Download here -
- Maior, H.A., Ramchurn R., Martindale S., Cai M., Wilson M.L., Benford S. fNIRS and Neurocinematics. InExtended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2019 Apr 18 (p. LBW2522). ACM. - Download here -
- Maior, H.A., Wilson, M.L., Sharples, S. Workload Alerts - Using Physiological Measures of Mental Workload to Provide Feedback during Tasks. ToCHI2018 Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction - Download here -
- Lukanov K., Maior, H. A., and Wilson, M. L. Using fNIRS in Usability Testing: Understanding the Effect of Web Form Layout on Mental Workload. In: CHI’16 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems, San Jose, California, May 2016 - Download here -
- Maior, H. A. Pike, M.,Wilson, M. L., and Sharples, S. Examining the Reliability of Using fNIRS in Realistic HCI Settings for Spatial and Verbal Tasks. In: CHI’15 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems, Seoul, Korea, April 2015 - Download here -
- Pike, M., Maior, H. A., Porcheron, M., Sharples, S. and Wilson, M. L. (2014). Measuring the effect of Think Aloud Protocols on Workload using fNIRS. In: CHI’14 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems, April-May 2014, Toronto - Download here -
- Maior, H. A. and Rao, S. (2014.) A Self-Governing, Decentralized, Extensible Internet of Things To Share Electrical Power Efficiently. In IEEE CASE 2014 International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, 18th August 2014. Taipei Taiwan
- Maior, H.A., Wilson, M.L., Locke, C., Swann, D. Brain activity and mental workload associated with artistic practice. CHI 2018 Artistic Brain Computer Interfaces Workshop. SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems, Montreal 2018.
- Maior, H.A., Sharples, S., and Wilson, M.L. Subjective and Objective Methods to Continuously Monitor Workload. Neuroergonomics 2016: The brain at work and in everyday life, Paris, France 2016.
- Maior, H.A., and Stringer, P. (2015) The Values of Games for Health and Well Being. Interdisciplinary Reflections on Games and Human Values - Workshop , The ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY), London, 2015.
- Maior, H.A., Wilson, M.L. and Sharples, S. (2015) fNIRS in Human Factors. 2FNIRS Workshop, Toulouse, France April 2015.
- Maior, H.A., Pike, M. Measuring Work Overload. The Ergonomist Magazine, May 2014.
