Keynote Speakers
Meet Our Keynote Speakers
We are thrilled to announce our keynote speakers for iHCI 2026, Marguerite Barry & Cristiano Storni. Their keynote talks will bring complementary perspectives on designing technology with people at their focus. Marguerite Barry, Associate Professor at UCD’s School of Information & Communication Studies, researches ethics in digital design, drawing on HCI, digital media and science and technology studies. Cristiano Storni, Associate Professor and Director of the Interaction Design Centre at the University of Limerick, explores technology, health, care, neurodiversity, inclusion and sustainability.
Their distinct areas of work offers the iHCI community a timely lens on how technology and people shape one another.
Marguerite Barry
Keynote Talk
From Intentions to Infrastructures: Making time for Ethical Design
Over the last decade, there has been real growth in discussion and appreciation of ethics as a guiding force in HCI research and design. And yet it's a continuing challenge to make time and space for ethical reflection and action in our work. It's not surprising that we often struggle to understand what we should be doing, how ethical work can be practised and communicated, or what impact it might have.
This talk will examine how intentions, time and power - the infrastructural considerations that shape how HCI research and design is carried out - affect our capacity for ethical reflection and action. I will share practical and speculative approaches, drawn from recent work and the inspiration of others, to help us create the time and space to act on our ethical intentions. This is not about designing '4Good' (which is good of course), or moral finger wagging (even if the world certainly needs it right now), or provocative philosophical positions (although that's fun too!). It's about the small and not so small ways we can adapt our research practices and infrastructures, and mobilise our collective will to design better interactions and experiences.
How will we build the structures, solidarity and time to centre ethical design?
Marguerite Barry is Associate Professor in the School of Information & Communication Studies in University College Dublin. Her work focuses on ethics in the design of digital technologies and draws on human-computer interaction (HCI), digital media and science and technology studies in developing theory, tools and methods to help researchers, practitioners and publics to come together and demand and design a better digital world. She is Co-PI in the ADAPT SFI Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology where she leads the Transparent Data Governance research strand. She is also a PI in the Rinn AI Centre on the ethics and empowerment research theme. Her work is published in ACM SIGCHI conferences and key journals in the fields of digital media, HCI, STS and critical data studies.
Cristiano Storni
Keynote Talk
The missing chair, expanding participation in research and design
In this keynote, Cristiano will present an overview of ongoing research at the Interaction Design Centre, with a particular focus on expanding participation in design and research to make these practices more inclusive and socially/ecologically respons-ive/able.
Drawing on a series of collaborative projects, the talk will begin with VIPPSTAR, a STAY Healthy EU project developing a digital platform for visually impaired children and adolescents. As design practices predominantly rely on visual methods and materials, VIPPSTAR provides an opportunity to explore participatory approaches that challenge the conventional assumptions about participation in design and that explore tactile and auditory forms of engagement.
The talk will then introduce Reworlding, an EU MSCA Doctoral Network that seeks to "un-world" dominant, unsustainable ways of living and imagine alternative futures for living together. Within this context, Cristiano will discuss the University of Limerick's work on re-tracing, the development of an Atlas of Neuro-diverse Inclusive Practices, and an Atlas of Synergies. This work explores how participatory design can become more inclusive, neuro-affirmative, and attentive to diverse ways of knowing and being in the world.
From here, the discussion will broaden to consider sustainability, the environment, and more-than-human participation in design and research. Two collaborative projects, "with an Elephant in the Room" and “Hearing from the Shannon", will illustrate emerging approaches to participatory design that explore design not only for but also with non-human actors, including wild animals and rivers.
The keynote will conclude by reflecting on what it means to expand participation in design and research, and on the opportunities and challenges this presents for the Irish design community and beyond.
Cristiano Storni is Associate Professor and senior researcher in Interaction Design. He is the Director of the Interaction Design Centre in the department of Computer Science and Information Systems in UL, is a member of Lero, co-founder of the Autism@UL Special Interest Group, and a senior researcher at the UL Health Research Institute. Cristiano holds a PhD in Information Systems and Organisation from the University of Trento (Italy), where he was trained as an ethnographer, and a 5y Laurea in Communication Science, with a focus on Human Computer Interaction, from the University of Siena. His research lies at the intersection of Design (interaction, participatory) and social sciences (ethnography, science and technology studies, particularly Actor Network Theory - ANT) with a general interest in the relationship between technology and people in various domains: health, care and self-care, social innovation, neurodiversity and inclusion, and sustainability.