Dr Shaun Macdonald

  • Research Associate (Computing Science)

Biography

I'm Dr Shaun Macdonald, a HCI Research Associate working in the Glasgow Interactive Systems Section in the University of Glasgow's School of Computing Science as Co-I on the AZRAM project.

I earned my PhD in Human Computer Interaction under the supervision from Professor Stephen Brewster and Professor Frank Pollick, investigating emotionally resonant vibrotactile comfort objects as a calming intervention for social anxiety.

Feel free to reach out to shaun.macdonald@glasgow.ac.uk or via my LinkedIn or BlueSky.

You can also find my personal website at shaun-macdonald-hci.owlstown.net

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020
Number of items: 15.

2025

Weerasinghe, M., Macdonald, S. , Fiani, C., O'Hagan, J., Chollet, M. , McGill, M. and Khamis, M. (2025) Beyond mute and block: adoption and effectiveness of safety tools in social VR, from ubiquitous harassment to social sculpting. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, (doi: 10.1109/TVCG.2025.3549860) (Early Online Publication)

2024

Khamis, M. , Panskus, R., Farzand, H., Mumm, M., Macdonald, S. and Marky, K. (2024) Perspectives on DeepFakes for Privacy: Comparing Perceptions of Photo Owners and Obfuscated Individuals towards DeepFake Versus Traditional Privacy-Enhancing Obfuscation. In: 23rd International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia (MUM 2024), Stockholm, Sweden, 01-04 Dec 2024, pp. 300-312. ISBN 9798400712838 (doi: 10.1145/3701571.3701602)

Macdonald, S. , Freeman, E. , Pollick, F. and Brewster, S. (2024) Prototyping and evaluation of emotionally resonant vibrotactile comfort objects as a calming social anxiety intervention. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 31(4), pp. 1-48. 46. (doi: 10.1145/3648615)

Macdonald, S. , Bretin, R. and ElSayed, S. (2024) Evaluating Transferable Emotion Expressions for Zoomorphic Social Robots using VR Prototyping. In: 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), Seattle, WA, USA, 21-25 Oct 2024, (Accepted for Publication)

Borgstedt, J., Macdonald, S. , Pollick, F. , Marky, K. and Brewster, S. (2024) Soothing Sensations: Enhancing Interactions with a Socially Assistive Robot through Vibrotactile Heartbeats. In: 33rd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2024), Pasadena, August 26th to 30th, 2024,

Farzand, H., Al Baiaty Suarez, D., Goodge, T. , Macdonald, S. A. , Marky, K., Khamis, M. and Cairns, P. (2024) Beyond Aesthetics: Evaluating Response Widgets for Reliability & Construct Validity of Scale Questionnaires. In: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2024), Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, USA, 11-16 May 2024, p. 55. ISBN 9798400703317 (doi: 10.1145/3613905.3650751)

Fiani, C., Bretin, R. , Macdonald, S. , Khamis, M. and McGill, M. (2024) “Pikachu would electrocute people who are misbehaving”: Expert, Guardian and Child Perspectives on Automated Embodied Moderators for Safeguarding Children in Social Virtual Reality. In: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2024), Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, USA, 11-16 May 2024, (doi: 10.1145/3613904.3642144)

2023

Wang, R., Zhang, H., Macdonald, S. A. and Di Campli San Vito, P. (2023) Increasing Heart Rate and Anxiety Level with Vibrotactile and Audio Presentation of Fast Heartbeat. In: 25th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2023), Paris, France, 9-13 Oct 2023, pp. 355-363. ISBN 9798400700552 (doi: 10.1145/3577190.3614161)

Macdonald, S. A. , Farzand, H., Alotaibi, N. , Islam, M. S. and Khamis, M. (2023) Change Policy or Users? Mitigating the Security Risks of Thermal Attacks. In: 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '23), Hamburg, Germany, 23-28 Apr 2023,

Al-Taie, A. , Abdrabou, Y., Macdonald, S. , Pollick, F. and Brewster, S. (2023) Keep it Real: Investigating Driver-Cyclist Interaction in Real-World Traffic. In: 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '23), Hamburg, Germany, 23-28 Apr 2023, p. 769. ISBN 9781450394215 (doi: 10.1145/3544548.3581049)

Macdonald, S. A. , Alotaibi, N. , Islam, M. S. and Khamis, M. (2023) Conducting and Mitigating Portable Thermal Imaging Attacks on User Authentication using AI-driven Methods. In: Augmented Humans 2023, Glasgow, UK, 12-14 Mar 2023, pp. 357-359. ISBN 9781450399845 (doi: 10.1145/3582700.3583698)

Marky, K., Macdonald, S. , Abdrabou, Y. and Khamis, M. (2023) In the Quest to Protect Users from Side-Channel Attacks – A User-Centred Design Space to Mitigate Thermal Attacks on Public Payment Terminals. In: 32nd USENIX Security Symposium, Anaheim, CA, California, 9-11 Aug 2023, pp. 5235-5252. ISBN 9781939133373

2022

Macdonald, S. A. , Pollick, F. and Brewster, S. A. (2022) The Impact of Thermal Cues on Affective Responses to Emotionally Resonant Vibrations. In: International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI '22), Bengaluru, India, 07-11 Nov 2022, pp. 259-269. ISBN 9781450393904 (doi: 10.1145/3536221.3556572)

2021

Macdonald, S. A. , Freeman, E. , Brewster, S. and Pollick, F. (2021) User Preferences for Calming Affective Haptic Stimuli in Social Settings. In: 23rd ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI ’21), Montréal, QC, Canada, 18-22 Oct 2021, pp. 387-396. ISBN 9781450384810 (doi: 10.1145/3462244.3479903)

2020

Macdonald, S. A. , Brewster, S. and Pollick, F. (2020) Eliciting Emotion with Vibrotactile Stimuli Evocative of Real-World Sensations. In: 2020 International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI '20), 25-29 Oct 2020, pp. 125-133. ISBN 9781450375818 (doi: 10.1145/3382507.3418812)

This list was generated on Sat Apr 19 00:08:47 2025 BST.
Jump to: Articles | Conference Proceedings
Number of items: 15.

Articles

Weerasinghe, M., Macdonald, S. , Fiani, C., O'Hagan, J., Chollet, M. , McGill, M. and Khamis, M. (2025) Beyond mute and block: adoption and effectiveness of safety tools in social VR, from ubiquitous harassment to social sculpting. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, (doi: 10.1109/TVCG.2025.3549860) (Early Online Publication)

Macdonald, S. , Freeman, E. , Pollick, F. and Brewster, S. (2024) Prototyping and evaluation of emotionally resonant vibrotactile comfort objects as a calming social anxiety intervention. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 31(4), pp. 1-48. 46. (doi: 10.1145/3648615)

Conference Proceedings

Khamis, M. , Panskus, R., Farzand, H., Mumm, M., Macdonald, S. and Marky, K. (2024) Perspectives on DeepFakes for Privacy: Comparing Perceptions of Photo Owners and Obfuscated Individuals towards DeepFake Versus Traditional Privacy-Enhancing Obfuscation. In: 23rd International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia (MUM 2024), Stockholm, Sweden, 01-04 Dec 2024, pp. 300-312. ISBN 9798400712838 (doi: 10.1145/3701571.3701602)

Macdonald, S. , Bretin, R. and ElSayed, S. (2024) Evaluating Transferable Emotion Expressions for Zoomorphic Social Robots using VR Prototyping. In: 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), Seattle, WA, USA, 21-25 Oct 2024, (Accepted for Publication)

Borgstedt, J., Macdonald, S. , Pollick, F. , Marky, K. and Brewster, S. (2024) Soothing Sensations: Enhancing Interactions with a Socially Assistive Robot through Vibrotactile Heartbeats. In: 33rd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2024), Pasadena, August 26th to 30th, 2024,

Farzand, H., Al Baiaty Suarez, D., Goodge, T. , Macdonald, S. A. , Marky, K., Khamis, M. and Cairns, P. (2024) Beyond Aesthetics: Evaluating Response Widgets for Reliability & Construct Validity of Scale Questionnaires. In: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2024), Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, USA, 11-16 May 2024, p. 55. ISBN 9798400703317 (doi: 10.1145/3613905.3650751)

Fiani, C., Bretin, R. , Macdonald, S. , Khamis, M. and McGill, M. (2024) “Pikachu would electrocute people who are misbehaving”: Expert, Guardian and Child Perspectives on Automated Embodied Moderators for Safeguarding Children in Social Virtual Reality. In: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2024), Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, USA, 11-16 May 2024, (doi: 10.1145/3613904.3642144)

Wang, R., Zhang, H., Macdonald, S. A. and Di Campli San Vito, P. (2023) Increasing Heart Rate and Anxiety Level with Vibrotactile and Audio Presentation of Fast Heartbeat. In: 25th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2023), Paris, France, 9-13 Oct 2023, pp. 355-363. ISBN 9798400700552 (doi: 10.1145/3577190.3614161)

Macdonald, S. A. , Farzand, H., Alotaibi, N. , Islam, M. S. and Khamis, M. (2023) Change Policy or Users? Mitigating the Security Risks of Thermal Attacks. In: 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '23), Hamburg, Germany, 23-28 Apr 2023,

Al-Taie, A. , Abdrabou, Y., Macdonald, S. , Pollick, F. and Brewster, S. (2023) Keep it Real: Investigating Driver-Cyclist Interaction in Real-World Traffic. In: 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '23), Hamburg, Germany, 23-28 Apr 2023, p. 769. ISBN 9781450394215 (doi: 10.1145/3544548.3581049)

Macdonald, S. A. , Alotaibi, N. , Islam, M. S. and Khamis, M. (2023) Conducting and Mitigating Portable Thermal Imaging Attacks on User Authentication using AI-driven Methods. In: Augmented Humans 2023, Glasgow, UK, 12-14 Mar 2023, pp. 357-359. ISBN 9781450399845 (doi: 10.1145/3582700.3583698)

Marky, K., Macdonald, S. , Abdrabou, Y. and Khamis, M. (2023) In the Quest to Protect Users from Side-Channel Attacks – A User-Centred Design Space to Mitigate Thermal Attacks on Public Payment Terminals. In: 32nd USENIX Security Symposium, Anaheim, CA, California, 9-11 Aug 2023, pp. 5235-5252. ISBN 9781939133373

Macdonald, S. A. , Pollick, F. and Brewster, S. A. (2022) The Impact of Thermal Cues on Affective Responses to Emotionally Resonant Vibrations. In: International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI '22), Bengaluru, India, 07-11 Nov 2022, pp. 259-269. ISBN 9781450393904 (doi: 10.1145/3536221.3556572)

Macdonald, S. A. , Freeman, E. , Brewster, S. and Pollick, F. (2021) User Preferences for Calming Affective Haptic Stimuli in Social Settings. In: 23rd ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI ’21), Montréal, QC, Canada, 18-22 Oct 2021, pp. 387-396. ISBN 9781450384810 (doi: 10.1145/3462244.3479903)

Macdonald, S. A. , Brewster, S. and Pollick, F. (2020) Eliciting Emotion with Vibrotactile Stimuli Evocative of Real-World Sensations. In: 2020 International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI '20), 25-29 Oct 2020, pp. 125-133. ISBN 9781450375818 (doi: 10.1145/3382507.3418812)

This list was generated on Sat Apr 19 00:08:47 2025 BST.

Grants

Awarded Funded

EPSRC Impact Acceleration Award (£50,000, 11 months for the AZRAM XR robot project (326240) with industry partner Synthiam).

SISCA Research Themes Award (~£200 award, funded recruitment for user study).

Saltire Scholarship from Entrepreneurial Scotland (~$8000 award, 10 week placement at Vepica, Houston, USA).

 

Contributor to Submissions

ESPRC Standard Grant (~£320,000, Research Co-I on proposed usable security project alongside Dr. Mohamed Khamis).

ESPRC Standard Grant (~£320,000, Contributor on health data visualisation project alongside Dr. Xianghua Ding).

2x REPHRAIN Proposals (~£79,000, Contributor and named researcher).

Supervision

Supervised 5  MSc/MSci Dissertation Research Projects 

Topics included VR prototyping of accessible interfaces, affective robotic touch, enhancing museums with haptics and understanding neurodivergent experiences with robot pets.

Teaching

Guest Lecturer - University of Glasgow Hons Courses   

Virtual Reality in Mobile HCI, Wearable Computing in Mobile HCI, Research Methods and Techniques

 

Teaching Assistant and Tutor - University of Glasgow Level 1 CS Courses 


Dr Shaun Macdonald on Bluesky