Max Willis MFA, PhD

interaction design futures

cv - contact:max[at]maxwillis[dot]net

okinawaisland

News and Updates

Update December 2023: It is a great pleasure to announce two new workshops for 2024: "Exploring ontology-based design interactions for sustainability research" will be taking place at the 18th International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science RCIS2024 https://www.rcis-conf.com/rcis2024/, in Guimarães, Portugal. We will be experimenting with a variety of game, play and embodied sense-making techniques to introspect in particular on our emergent Social Ecological Systems Integrated Ontology and Notation (SESsION).
And the 1st Playing with Meanings (PwM) Workshop , which will be held at the Joint Ontology Workshops (JOWO) 2024, co-located with the 14th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems FOIS 2024 15-19 July 2024 (Enschede, Netherlands)
See the workshop pages at www.humanfactorsinsemantics.net for more information.

Update October 2023: My Interaction Design Portfolio is now available for download

Update July 2023: This year we presented at MARE People and the Sea conference at University of Amsterdam http://www.marecentre.nl. This discussion, developed with Dr. Greta Adamo and marine scientist Dr. Marta Pascual was titled "Technological mediation of existential threats from the deep: a postphenomenological account of marine and coastal knowledge production and its potential impacts on ocean policy.” This was the first time I served as Panel Chair for a discussion, and I pushed for shorter presentations with a longer question and answer session, which turned out to be such a great experience, judging from the feedback, for everyone involved.

Update May 2023: Early this year we presented a paper (myself and Dr. Greta Adamo) The omnipresent role of technology in social-ecological systems: ontological discussion and updated integrated framework at the conference RCIS2023 Research Challenges in Information Sciences at Ionian University, Corfu, Greece May 23-26. This is an extension of the previous year's RCIS2022 contribution, Conceptual Integration for Social-Ecological Systems: An Ontological Approach. (see publications page).

Update April 2023: I joined the European Commission's Marine Spatial Planning Community of Practice for the Mediterranean (MED-MSP-CoP) Pool of experts. This is a new initiative bringing together a range of professionals in MSP to discover synergies and build research communities. Marine Spatial Planning is strongly mediated by geo-spatial data, mapping and modelling technologies, yet it is wholly focussing on social aspects of land-sea interactions, making sense of how humans engage with, and are active in coastal and marine regions. My contribution to this is a focus on participatory stakeholder engagement, for the only way that for example Marine Protected Areas can actually thrive, is if people, communities, local and national governments work together to change attitudes and behaviours towards protecting the marine environment. More information about MED-MSP-CoP coming soon...