Professor Chris Baber PhD FBCS FCIEHF

• PhD Human Factors of Speech Technology in 1990
• BA (Psychology / English) in 1987

Fellowships

• Fellow of the British Computer Society
• Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors

Chris graduated from Keele University with a BA (Hons) in Psychology and English Literature. He decided to pursue a PhD and joined Aston University’s Applied Psychology Unit to research speech technology.  He joined the University of Birmingham in 1990 to lecture on the MSc Work Design and Ergonomics programme (initially in the School of Production Engineering before it moved to the School of Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering). In 2002 he moved to the School of Electronic, Electrical and Computer Engineering, partly to continue his research on wearable computers and partly to deliver courses on the MSc Human-Centred Systems. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer, Reader and Professor before becoming Head of School in 2013. In 2019 he moved to the School of Computer Science, in connection with work on human-machine teaming.

• Small Embedded Systems (in the School of Engineering)

• Evaluation Methods and Statistics

Chris has supervised around 30 students to completion of their PhDs.

His PhD concerned the application of speech technology (still quite a novel thing back in the late 1980s, where he worked with a Marconi Macrospeak speech recogniser, learning the rudiments of Unix to get the thing working), which was part-sponsored by a National electricity distribution company. So, he spent time visiting power stations and distribution centres to get an idea of how people did their work. During his PhD, he became interested in supporting speech recognition for mobile workers – which resulted in a large laptop, running the speech recogniser, in a rucksack, together with GPS antenna, and a small head-mounted, monocular television display, to read the words that had been recognised. Naturally, this led to working on wearable computers. Since then, he has shifted the sensors from the person onto everyday tools and objects in order to study the development and retention of human skill. Related to the wearable computers work, he developed technology for crime scene examination – which led to work on sense-making (that is, how crime scene examiners interpret a crime scene and select evidence), which led to work with Police and Intelligence analysts. This has led to work on how human decision making is supported by Artificial Intelligence, and to the study of human-machine teams. In all of this work, he combines an interest in studying human behaviour ‘in the field’ with the design and making of gadgets to measure or support activity.

• Panel Chair for EPSRC and Member of EPSRC College
• External Examiner for Loughborough University