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Hi! I’m a Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Animal-Computer Interaction at The University of Glasgow in Scotland (UK). My research explores how animals interact with computer systems and how to design and build methods to capture their interactions. I am interested in exploring what it means for animals to interact with technologies and how we can create, design, and support exchanges between humans, animals, and technology. Examples of my work include DogPhone systems for dogs to video call humans over the internet and a Monkey Tunnel system for monkeys to play and pick between videos and audio whenever they choose. 

Previously, I got my Masters and a PhD degree in Computer Science from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) (UK) and undertook a three-year postdoc at Aalto University (FI).

I publish primarily in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and animal science in top conferences/journals such as CHI, IJHCS, CSCW, DIS, ISS, Animals, etc. I’m on the editorial board of IJHCS, in the Animal-Computer Interaction Steering Committee and paper chair at ACI, associate chair at CHI, ISS, and DIS and part of the Scottish Primate Research Group. My research has been funded by Royal Society of Edinbrugh (RSE), Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT) and SISCA.

My research is regularly featured in international news and radio such as The BBC, The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired Magazine, The New York Times, WallStreet Journal, and Huffington Post and and TV broadcasts such as Netflix, BBC News and various documentaries internationally. I have also worked and published with industry, such as SnapChat, Microsoft Research and Samsung.

In this website I keep a blog where I talk to researchers, blog about conferences I’ve been to and projects I take on in my spare time. You can also read my publications, check out what the media is reporting about my work, or look at my projects for more information on what I’ve worked on so far.

Are you interested in working together on animal technologies? Please get in touch – I am always open to collaborations and new students. Check out my open positions for more details if you are wanting to do a PhD with me. If you are a zoo, animal organisation, educator, or start-up, many of the systems I make for animals are open access, including software and how-to build guides.

Contact Information

Email: ilyena.hirskyj-douglas [at] glasgow.ac.uk

Twitter: @ilyena

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ilyena/ 

Google Scholar: scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=9z8DutMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao