Our Team

Justin Edwards, PhD

Founder, Managing Partner

• Geograpy: US, Finland, global

• Expertise: Proactive speech agents

• Recent Research: Human-AI collaboration: Designing artificial agents to facilitate socially shared regulation among learners

Benjamin Cowan, PhD

Managing Partner

• Geography: Ireland, UK, France, global

• Expertise: Psychological methods in HCI for conversational AI

• Recent Research: What Makes a Good Conversation? Challenges in Designing Truly Conversational Agents

Leigh Clark, PhD

Managing Partner

• Geography: UK, Ireland, global

• Expertise: Speech accessibility and inclusive conversational design

• Recent Research: Speech Diversity and Speech Interfaces: Considering an Inclusive Future Through Stammering

Philip Doyle, PhD

Managing Partner

• Geography: UK, Ireland, US, gloabl

• Expertise: Partner models in human-AI dialogue

• Recent Research: Cross-cultural Validation of Partner Models for Voice User Interfaces

Daniel Rough, PhD

Managing Partner

• Geography: UK, Ireland, global

• Expertise: Conversational AI design tools

• Recent Research: Creation through Conversation-A Provocation

Diego Garaialde, PhD

Managing Partner

• Geography: Ireland, Brazil, global

• Expertise: Multimodal conversational interactions

• Recent Research: RoomReader: A Multimodal Corpus of Online Multiparty Conversational Interactions

Orla Cooney

Managing Partner

• Geography: Ireland, UK, global

• Expertise: Mental health applications of conversational AI

• Recent Research: Using Speech Agents for Mood Logging within Blended Mental Healthcare: Mental Healthcare Practitioners’ Perspectives

Paola Peña

Managing Partner

• Geography: Ireland, UK, Mexico, global

• Expertise: Cross-cultural conversational AI

• Recent Research: Beyond the Illusion: LLMs and the Case for Pragmatic Cues in Conversation

Our Expertise

Our team represents one of the world’s leading concentrations of expertise in conversational AI and human-computer interaction. Based at University College Dublin, home to the HCI@UCD group and the SFI ADAPT Centre, our researchers and practitioners combine:

• Conversational AI Research: Advanced dialogue systems, natural language understanding, and speech technology
• Human-Computer Interaction: User experience design, interaction design, and usability engineering
• Cross-Cultural Communication: Multilingual AI systems and culturally-aware interaction design
• Psychological Foundations: Understanding human cognition, social dynamics, and communication patterns
• Industry Applications: Translating research into scalable, production-ready AI solutions

Join Our Team

Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. We’re always looking for talented researchers, developers, and designers who share our passion for advancing conversational AI.