Dr. David Harris Smith

About:

Dr. David Harris Smith was an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Multimedia at McMaster University. His humanist perspective on technology, the arts, and culture framed his research. His primary area of research was media and information arts, which is the intersection of arts, technology and science. This includes avatar virtual worlds, augmented and mixed reality environments, assistive media technologies for persons with disabilities, education and knowledge translation using virtual worlds, new media interaction and interface design, biometric and brain-computer interfaces, and cognitive science of media, social robotics, and artificial intelligence. His cultural robotics project hitchBOT, the hitchhiking robot, received extensive international media coverage. He taught courses in coding, design, and new media arts.

Current Projects:

Using AI-Enhanced Social Robots to Improve Children’s Healthcare Experiences. CAN-UK AI Initiative. PI Dr. Mary Ellen Foster, University of Glasgow.

Mixed reality narrative and social robotics. A multidisciplinary research creation project exploring synthetic phenomenology in robots. With collaborators at the University of Hong Kong and Toronto Metropolitan University.

Virtual City Environments. Using virtual environments for participatory planning and civic engagement.

Selected Publications:

Why Build a Robot With Artificial Consciousness? How to Begin? A Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue on the Design and Implementation of a Synthetic Model of Consciousness. Smith, D. H., & Schillaci, G. (2021).

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