I am Research Associate in the Electoral Debate Visualisation (EDV) project, working with Anna De Liddo and Simon Buckingham Shum on using technology to enhance the experience of debate viewers in the next UK General Election.

I recently completed a PhD in computational linguistics, under the supervision of Paul Piwek and Richard Power from The Open University’s Computing and Communications Department. My thesis specialised in analysing and modelling non-cooperative behaviour in political interviews. I am currently extending this work to political debates in the context of the EDV project.

Before becoming a computational linguist, I obtained a MSc in computer science from the National University of Rosario, Argentina. I have carried out research on virtual human systems at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies in Los Angeles, California, and on software architectures and formal methods in Portugal, Argentina and Finland. From 2001 to 2004, I worked as a software engineer for ATX Software in Lisbon, Portugal. My duties included web interface design, database administration, quality assurance, project management and customer liaison.

Keys: non-cooperative dialogue, discourse structure, dialogue games, argument visualisation, dialogue annotation, web technologies, social engagement, e-democracy

Team: Michelle Bachler, Simon Buckingham Shum, Anna De Liddo, Simon Knight, Duygu Bektik, Thomas Ullmann