I am interested in the sensing, understanding, and actioning of digital health data to radically transform how people live their lives. My research interests lie in designing, developing, and evaluating secure health informatics and cybernetics platforms and ecosystem elements as a digital health infrastructure—crossing software engineering and pervasive technologies. This includes digital phenotyping, assistive and diagnostic healthcare technologies, and systems for healthcare professionals. I use co-design/creation methods to create solutions applicable to patients, service users, and health professionals. I have an interest in ethical challenges of healthcare technologies and applying mixed methods to complex problems.

Select Publications

A complete list of publications can be found on my institution profile page, or through one of my researcher IDs (Google Scholar, ORCID).

Software Architectures and Analytics, with Privacy and Trust, in Digital Health

  • Combining data mining and text mining for detection of early stage dementia: the SAMS framework

    Christopher Bull, Dommy Asfiandy, Ann Gledson, Joseph Mellor, Samuel Couth, Gemma Stringer, Paul Rayson, Alistair Sutcliffe, John Keane, Xiao-Jun Zeng, Alistair Burns, Iracema Leroi, Clive Ballard, Pete Sawyer

    2016 | Resources and ProcessIng of linguistic and extra-linguistic Data from people with various forms of cognitive/psychiatric impairments (RaPID ‘16) | PDF

  • Supporting Older Adults Using Privacy-Aware IoT Analytics

    Mateusz Mikusz, Nigel Davies, Peter Shaw, Christopher Bull, Bran Knowles, Niall Hayes, Lucas Introna

    2019 | Living in the Internet of Things (IoT 2019) | DOI | PDF

  • What Happens in Peer-Support, Stays in Peer-Support: Software Architecture for Peer-Sourcing in Mental Health

    Mahsa Honary, Jaejoon Lee, Christopher Bull, Jiangtao Wang, Sumi Helal

    2020 | Computers, Software, and Applications Conference (COMPSAC’20) | DOI | PDF

Requirements Engineering in Digital Health

  • GP Benchmark: Engineering a Crowd-Sourcing Platform for Real-Time Understanding of Personality and Cognitive Biases in Clinical Error

    Wesley Hutchinson, Sumi Helal, Christopher Bull

    2020 | Requirements Engineering for Well-Being, Aging, and Health (REWBAH) | DOI | PDF

  • Known and unknown requirements in healthcare

    Alistair Sutcliffe, Pete Sawyer, Gemma Stringer, Samuel Couth, Laura JE Brown, Ann Gledson, Christopher Bull, Paul Rayson, John Keane, Xiao-jun Zeng, Iracema Leroi

    2020 | Requirements Engineering | DOI | PDF

  • Discovering Affect-Laden Requirements to Achieve System Acceptance

    Alistair Sutcliffe, Paul Rayson, Christopher Bull, Pete Sawyer

    2014 | International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE’14) | DOI | PDF

Studios in Software Engineering Education–Behavioral and Human Factors in SE

  • Studios in Software Engineering Education: Towards an Evaluable Model

    Christopher Bull, Jon Whittle, Leon Cruickshank

    2013 | International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE ‘13) | DOI

  • Supporting Reflective Practice in Software Engineering Education through a Studio-Based Approach

    Christopher Bull, Jon Whittle

    2014 | IEEE Software | DOI

  • Observations of a Software Engineering Studio: Reflecting with the Studio Framework

    Christopher Bull, Jon Whittle

    2014 | Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T ‘14) | DOI | PDF | Best Paper Award

Projects

I have worked on numerous health projects and directly contributed to research spanning several disciplines, including Systems and Software Engineering, Data Science, and HCI.

I currently work in Digital Health. My main focus is the design and development of ecosystem elements, pervasive healthcare technologies, and cybernetics/informatics platforms.

The following projects are those which I have had significant or fundamental contributions:

Active Projects:

  • IDEA-FAST (H2020, IMI2) — Identifying digital endpoints for fatigue and sleep for people living with chronic conditions.
  • NortHFutures (EPSRC) — The Northern Health Futures Hub, which facilitates and accelerates responsible, human-centred Digital Health research and development, with a focus on regional healthcare needs.
  • Generative AI in Computing Education — Understanding the opportunities and challenges of integrating Generative AI into programming education.

Past Projects:

  • SPACE: Suicide Prevention using Analytics and Cybernetic Elements — Passive monitoring of mental health behaviours through pervasive technologies to provide earlier support and intervention.
  • Peer-Sourcing — A new paradigm and software architecture for sourcing peers, with a privacy and distributed focus.
  • Cue 2 Action — Persuasive health, adaptive behaviour change, and patient engagement.
  • GP Benchmark — Website for General Practitioners (GPs) to engage and reflect on simulated medical cases to explore prevalence of certain decision-making biases.
  • Goshna — Accessible airport gate announcements for people who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing.
  • Whyndyke Garden Village — Designing smart-ready lifelong healthy living homes and communities for an NHS Healthy new town.
  • StammerApp — A mobile application to support people who stammer, created with user-centred design.
  • Mobile Age (H2020) — Platforms and mobile applications to ensure the inclusion of older adults in digital public services, including a focus on independent living and reducing social isolation.
  • SAMS (EPSRC) — Desktop computer software for passive monitoring and identification of Alzheimer’s disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment through data mining and natural language processing.
  • Studios in Software Engineering Education (PhD) — Exploring and implementing an alternative pedagogical approach in Software Engineering, studio-based learning.
  • CoffeeTable: Collaborative Tabletop Java IDE — A working vision for the future of collaborative IDEs. It uses the physical desk space between people to create a simple, playful, and collaborative software development environment.

PhD Supervision

Current PhD students and their research topics:

  • Sami Alghamdi: Design Tools to Support Novice Programming Learners
  • Nada Altwala: Conversational Agents to Support People with Dementia
  • Remco Benthem De Grave: Digital Technology to Empower People in Making Healthy and Sustainable Food Purchase Choices
  • Chinomnso Ekwedike: Generative AI in Computing Education
  • Jake Hobbs: Augmented Reality Surgical Applications for Operating Theatres
  • Yiwen Shang: Impacts of Social Media on Mental Wellbeing
  • Nick Smith: Reminiscence Therapy for People with Dementia Using Virtual Reality

Past PhD students and their research topics:

  • Viana Zhang: Technology-based Interventions and Assistance for Maternal Mental Health and Wellbeing