Alexandra Cristea

Professor at Durham University

Alexandra I. Cristea is Professor, Deputy Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science, Deputy Head, Director of Research and Founder of the Artificial Intelligence in Human Systems research group in the Department of Computer Science at Durham University. She is Advisory Board Member at the Ustinov College, N8 CIR Digital Humanities team lead for Durham. Her research includes web science, learning analytics, user modelling and personalisation, semantic web, social web, authoring, with over 300 papers on these subjects (over 5000 citations on Google Scholar, h-index 38). Especially, her work on frameworks for adaptive systems has influenced many researchers and is highly cited (with the top paper with over 200 citations). She was classified within the top 50 researchers in the world in the area of educational computer-based research according to Microsoft Research (2015-02-10). Prof. Cristea has been highly active and has an influential role in international research projects. She leads and has led various projects – the ATI@Durham Research Network (2022); the Epistemological Engine (2021-22); Weizman Institute funded JANET (Joint Lab in Learning Analytics for Personalised Science Teaching) project (2020-2022); Predictive and prescriptive analytics for the media industry, Distinctive Publishing (2019-2022); Newton funded workshop on Higher Education for All (’14-’18), Santander funded Education for disadvantaged pupils (’14-18′), Warwick-funded project APLIC (’11-;12), EU Minerva projects ALS (06-09) and EU Minerva ADAPT (’02-’05); as well as participated as university PI in several EU FP7 projects – BLOGFOREVER (’11-’13), GRAPPLE (’08- ’11), PROLEARN (’07) and as co-PI in the Warwick-funded Engaging Young People with Assistance Technologies (’13-’15) also featured by the BBC. Recently she has taken giving back to the community to a different level, leading the MESSENGER (Women inSTEM and Cultural Diversity) (2022); Empowering women in science through mentoring and exchanging experiences (2021-22) (UK-Brazil Gender Equality Partnership funded by the British Council), and co-leading the TechUP project series (Bootcamp 2021) (2019-2020: training 100 women in computer science from various (BAME) backgrounds). She has been keynote/invited speaker, chair, organiser, co-organizer, panellist and program committee member of various conferences in her research field (including, for example, ITS, AIED, UMAP, ED-MEDIA, Hypertext, Adaptive Hypermedia, EDM, ICCE, ICAI). She is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, Associate Editor of the ACM Computing Surveys, Associate Editor of Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and she was co-editor of the Advanced Technologies and Learning Journal and executive peer reviewer of the IEEE LTTF Education Technology and Society Journal. She acted as UNESCO expert for adaptive web-based education at a high-level (Ministry of Education and Educational institutes) meeting of East European countries, educational invited expert for the Romanian prime minister, as well as EU expert for H2020, FP7, FP6, eContentPlus. She has interacted with various international and local media (she has given a recent live radio interview to Power 106FM in Jamaica; work from her lab has been publicised by Free Radio Coventry & Warwickshire, Birmingham Post, Birmingham Mail, phys.org, The Daily Dot, Mirror, Vice Motherboard, BBC News, Pinterest, Globenewswire, Romanian TV). She is a BCS fellow, a HEA fellow, IEEE Senior Member and IEEE CS member, EATEL (European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning) founding member, ACM member.