Benjamin Richard Cowan

Dr. Benjamin Richard Cowan serves as Associate Professor at the School of Information & Communication Studies, University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland. He co-founded and co-directs the HCI@UCD research group and acts as Co-Principal Investigator for the €90+ million SFI-funded ADAPT Centre on AI-driven content technologies, leading its Interaction and Control research strand.

Education:

• Psychology & Business Studies (BSc), University of Edinburgh, 2006
• Usability Engineering (PhD), University of Edinburgh, 2011

Research Interests: Dr. Cowan's work sits at the intersection of psychology, human-computer interaction, and communication systems, investigating how design impacts user behavior in social, collaborative, and communicative technology interactions. His research emphasizes speech interfaces and conversational user interfaces (CUI), specifically examining human-likeness in voice design, perspective-taking mechanisms, partner modeling in speech interactions, and accessibility challenges for second-language speakers. His approach integrates psychological principles to understand behavioral responses in technology-mediated communication.

Scientific Awards: No scientific awards were mentioned in the provided text.

Grants and Advising: Dr. Cowan secures major funding as Co-PI of the Science Foundation Ireland ADAPT Centre. The text does not specify doctoral advisees or formal student supervision roles.

Labs and Teams: He co-founded and co-directs HCI@UCD, one of Europe's largest Human-Computer Interaction research groups. Within the ADAPT Centre, he leads the interdisciplinary Interaction and Control research strand focused on AI-driven interface technologies.