DTMD 15 Programme Committee

Dr Magnus Ramage is a lecturer in information systems at the Open University. He has a background in information systems, with a PhD from Lancaster University in computer-supported cooperative work evaluation. His research interests include the lives and work of the key systems thinkers and the nature of information across multiple disciplines. He is co-author of the book Systems Thinkers, a guide to the major thinkers in the field of systems thinking, published in 2009 by Springer. With David Chapman, he was editor of a book on the nature of information across a range of disciplines, Perspectives on Information, published in 2011 by Routledge. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Kybernetes.

Dr David Chapman is a Senior Lecturer, a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of Institution of Engineering and Technology, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He was a design engineer working on optical fibre communication systems with Plessey Telecommunications before joining the Open University in 1986, where he completed a PhD in Optical Fibre Networks and contributed material on telecommunications and ICT to a wide range of courses. Having served as Director of the ICT Programme Committee and Head of the ICT Department, he is now developing his research interests into the nature of information, reported in his Intropy blog.

Professor Chris Bissell is Professor of Telematics, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He has been responsible for Open University teaching materials on telecommunications, control engineering, media studies, and other ICT topics. He was Head of the ICT Department for nine years from 1996 onwards. His major research interests are in the history of technology, mathematical modelling, and engineering education, on which he has published widely. He is also active in quality assurance in higher education.

Derek Jones is a Lecturer in Design with the Open University and module chair for U101: Design Thinking, the innovative and award winning Level 1 entry course for the university’s Design and Innovation degree. His research interests include: the education and development of creativity in education, Building Information Modelling (BIM) design processes in practice and education, Virtual architecture and place, Archetypes in architecture. Derek is also a qualified architect with over 15 years of experience in the construction design and procurement industries. He is currently an architect and BIM Manager for Keppie Design based in Glasgow, Scotland. In his spare time, Derek is also an Associate Lecturer with the Open University.

Dr Mustafa Ali is a Lecturer in the Computing Department at the Open University. He has a background in artificial intelligence, with a PhD from Brunel University in computational philosophy. His current research focuses on the development of a hermeneutic framework that can be used to inform critical investigations of computational, informational,cybernetic, systems-theoretical and Trans-/Post-human phenomena. The framework is grounded in phenomenology, critical race theory and post-colonial thought and is being used to analyse computational social science phenomena (multi-agent systems), power relations within digital politics/activism and discourses on the “digital divide”. Previous research interests include the artificial sciences (AI, A-Life and virtual reality), philosophy of mind (process models of consciousness), conceptual foundations of emergence, and philosophy of technology (artefact ontology).

Dr Graham Harvey is Reader in Religious Studies and Head of the Department of Religious Studies at the Open University.

Dr Paul-Francois Tremlett is a Lecturer in Religious Studies at the Open University. He is part of an interdisciplinary and international research team working on a project called ‘Re-Assembling Democracy: Ritual as Cultural Resource’ funded by the Norwegian Research Council http://www.tf.uio.no/english/research/projects/redo/. His part of the project examines the Occupy protests in London and Hong Kong following the financial crash of 200 relating them to ritual, place-making practices and experiences of the city. The project runs from 2013-2017. Tremlett’s interests include (i) contemporary East Asian religiosities and spiritualities, (ii) spatialities, geographies and place-making practices, (iii) modernity(ies) and secularism(s), (iv) cognitive theory of religion and (v) Marxism, structuralism and classical and contemporary social theory. He is also convenor of the Arts Faculty's Cross-Cultural Identities Research Group (http://www.open.ac.uk/arts/research/cross-cultural-identities/) and sits on the editorial boards of the journals Culture and Religion and Critical Research on Religion. He can be contacted at paul-francois.tremlett@open.ac.uk.