Dhaval Vyas

Associate Professor Dhaval Vyas serves in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science within the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology at the University of Queensland. He earned a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Twente in the Netherlands in 2011, a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Lancaster University in the UK, and an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Gujarat University in India. With more than 15 years of experience across academia and industry, Vyas held the ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellowship from 2018 to 2022 and currently acts as Program Convenor for the Masters of Interaction Design. He is a member of the Compassion Lab research group.

Vyas specializes in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), focusing on designing information technologies to enhance health and wellbeing for under-resourced communities such as low socio-economic status groups, refugees and asylum seekers, women in crisis situations, rural communities in developing countries, and older adults. His research encompasses fostering DIY and making practices in underserved communities, quantified self and activity tracking for healthy living, and technologies for disabilities and wellbeing using virtual reality, storytelling, and pervasive technologies. Key projects include the development of ShedBox, a project management and digital storytelling application in use at Sunnybank Men’s Shed since July 2020, and initiatives promoting e-waste recycling and social entrepreneurship. Vyas has produced 132 scholarly works from 2006 to 2025, comprising 40 journal articles, 89 conference publications, and other outputs, featured in prestigious venues like ACM CHI, DIS, Creativity and Cognition, and Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. Notable publications include “Democratizing making: scaffolding participation using e-waste to engage under-resourced communities in technology design” (CHI 2023), “Crossing the threshold: pathways into makerspaces for women at the intersectional margins” (2023), “ShedBox: enabling digital storytelling in men’s sheds” (Behaviour and Information Technology, 2023), “Do it together: making makerspace learning environments more accessible for refugee and migrant women” (Interacting with Computers, 2025), and “Building new clubhouses: bridging refugee and migrant women into technology design and production by leveraging assets” (Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2025). His contributions have influenced practical applications and received media coverage on ABC News and Channel Ten.