Gabriela Avram is Lecturer in Digital Media and Interaction Design in the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, and a senior member of the Interaction Design Centre. Building on a Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Knowledge Management background, her current research focuses on the collaborative economy and on the role of technology in supporting civic engagement of local communities.
Currently, Gabriela is the coordinator of the COST Action CA16121 From Sharing to Caring: Examining Socio-Technical Aspects of the Collaborative Economy.
Between 2013 and 2017, Gabriela was Principal Investigator on the EU meSch project(http://mesch-project.eu), leading the meSch team at the University of Limerick that focused on co-design in cultural heritage organisations.
She is a member of Creative Communities and is currently running the IxDA Limerick chapter. During 2014 – the Limerick City of Culture year, Gabriela was involved in several “Made in Limerick” projects, such as “Are You Dancing?- Remembering the Limerick Dancehalls” and “Limerick Lace“. She was also the co-organiser of 3Dcamp, an unconference style event dedicated to 3D visualizations, virtual worlds and ubiquitous computing she ran in collaboration with James Corbett from 2007 until 2014.
She has worked on numerous international research projects on topics such as: adult learning, cultural and social aspects of collaboration, distributed work practices, Open Source communities, and the adoption and uses of social media for work-related purposes in various environments. She has published extensively in international conferences and journals.
Gabriela has extensive teaching experience, acquired both in academia and in a business environment. She taught in Romania, Germany, France and Ireland.
She holds a PhD in Information Systems from the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest (Romania). Between 2003 and 2005, she has undertaken postdoctoral studies in Germany and Luxembourg, focusing on connecting knowledge management and e-learning initiatives. During the socGSD research project (2005-2007) at the University of Limerick, she studied collaborative work practices in cross-cultural environments, working with IBM, HP and Intel.
(Selected list of publications.)
Book chapters
- Avram, G. (2017)”The Limerick Dance Halls Project: The Charm of Discreet Technology” in Ciolfi, L.,Damala, A., Hornecker, E., Maye, L.(eds) Cultural Heritage Communities, Routledge
- Ciolfi, L. and Avram, G.(2016) “Digital social interactions in the city: Reflecting on location-based social networks”, in Kitchin, R.& Perng, S.Y.(Ed.) Code and the City, Routledge, Oxford, UK
- Ciolfi, L., Petrelli, D., McDermott, F., Avram, G. and van Dijk, D. (2015), “Co-Design to Empower Cultural Heritage Professionals as Technology Designers: The meSch Project”, in Bihanic, D. (Ed.), Empowering Users Through Design, London: Springer, 213-224
Conference papers
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Maye, L., Bouchard, D., Avram, G., Ciolfi, L.(2017)”Supporting Cultural Heritage Professionals Adopting and Shaping Interactive Technologies in Museums“, In Proceedings of the 2017 conference on Designing interactive systems (DIS’18). ACM, New York, NY, USA
- Ciolfi, L., Avram, G. , Maye, L., Dulake, N., Marshall, M.T., VanDijk, D., McDermott, F.(2016) “Articulating Co-Design in Museums: Reflections on Two Participatory Processes“, In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW ’16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp.13-25
- Damala, A., van der Vaart, M., Clarke,L., Hornecker, E., Avram, G., Kockelkorn, H., Ruthven, I. (2016) “Evaluating tangible and multisensory museum visiting experiences: Lessons learned from the meSch project“, Museums and the Web 2016, 6-9 April, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Journal special issues
- Grönvall, E., Ciolfi, L., Avram, G., Rossitto, C. and Barkhuus, L. (2016), “HCI at the Boundary of Work and Life”, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Online first, June 2016
- Pipek, V., Avram, G. and De Cindio, F. (2015) Communities and Technologies – Introduction.Interactions 23, 1 (December 2015), 34-35.
- Avram, G., Wulf, V.,(2011) Guest editorial: Studying work practices in Global Software Engineering, Information and Software Technology, Volume 53, Issue 9, Studying work practices in Global Software Engineering, September 2011, Pages 949-954, ISSN 0950-5849
Workshop papers
Interaction Design Centre
CS2031
University of Limerick, Ireland
t: 353 61 202782