Photo Giulia Barbareschi
  • Computer Science
  • Psychology
  • Social Sciences

Inclusive Technology and Collective Engagement

Prof. Dr. Giulia Barbareschi

University Duisburg-Essen
Tectrum - Technologiezentrum
47057 Duisburg
Germany

Academic Career and Research Areas

Giulia Barbareschi is a Professor at the University of Duisburg Essen and the Research Center Trustworthy Data Science and Security where she leads the Inclusive Technology and Collective Engagement group. Her research focuses on exploring how we can leverage, adapt, and develop existing and new technologies to promote more equitable societies through direct collaboration with marginalized individuals.

Her work sits at the intersection of Human Computer Interaction, Inclusive Design and Social Development. Through her research, she works collaboratively with people with different abilities, ages, genders, nationalities and social backgrounds to understand what already works on the ground, where barriers persist, and how co-designed solutions can scale responsibly across sectors.

Before moving to Germany in 2025, Giulia has worked in Japan as Senior Assistant Professor at the Keio Graduate School of Media Design in Yokohama (Japan), which she had originally joined in 2021 as Research Fellow supported by the Japan Society for Promotion of Science. working to investigate how marginalised experiences can be leveraged to spearhead technological innovations from supporting novel modalities for creative expression, developing educational toolkits, or radically re-develop traditional assistive devices for functional and playful interactions.

More information are available on Giulia’s personal homepage.

Academic Distinctions

  • Since 2025: Professor for Inclusive Technology and Collective Engagement, University of Duisburg-Essen and Research Center Trustworthy Data Science and Security (RC Trust)
  • 2023–2025: Project Senior Assistant Professor, Keio Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University, Japan
  • 2021–2023: JSPS Research Fellow, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan
  • 2018–2021: Postdoctoral Researcher and Research Fellow, UCL Interaction Centre, University College London, UK
  • 2018: Research Associate / Intern, World Health Organization (GATE), Geneva, Switzerland
  • 2018: Ph.D. in Human–Computer Interaction, University College London, UK
  • 2014: Specialist Diploma in Medical Device Science, National University of Ireland Galway
  • 2008: B.A. in Physiotherapy, University of Genoa, Italy

Selected Awards and Distinctions

  • Honorable Mention Paper Award ISMAR (2025)
  • Best Paper Award (2025) and Honourable Mention Paper Awards (2022, 2024), ACM CHI Conference
  • Best Demo Award, SIGGRAPH Asia (2023)
  • Best Art Paper Award, SIGGRAPH (2022)
  • JSPS Short-Term Fellowship, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (2021)
  • Provost Public Engagement Respond Award, University College London (2020)
  • British Science Association Media Fellowship (2019)
  • Schmidt Science Fellowship Finalist (2018)
  • Global Disability Innovation Hub Short Fellowship Award (2018)
  • EPSRC PhD Scholarship, “Liveable Cities” project (2014–2018)
  • Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (2017)
  • London Health Tech Challenge – Winner, London Business School, Deloitte Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship & UCL (2015)

Key publications

  • Kinga Skiers, Danyang Peng, Anish Kundu, Tanner Person, Kenkichi Takase, Tamii Nagoshi, Sawako Nakayama, Yuichiro Yano, Tomoyuki Miyazaki, Kouta Minamizawa, and Giulia Barbareschi. 2025. “I was truly able to express the image of myself that I have within”: Exploring VR Group Therapy Approaches with the LGBTQIA+ Community. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Vol. 31, No. 11, 9688–9698. DOI: 10.1109/TVCG.2025.3616754
  • Giulia Barbareschi, Songchen Zhou, Ryoichi Ando, Midori Kawaguchi, Mark Armstrong, Mikito Ogino, Shunsuke Aoiki, Eisaku Ohta, Harunobu Taguchi, Youichi Kamiyama, and others. 2024. Brain Body Jockey project: Transcending Bodily Limitations in Live Performance via Human Augmentation. In Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, 1–14. Association for Computing Machinery. DOI: 10.1145/3663548.3675621 
  • Gifty Ayoka, Giulia Barbareschi, Richard Cave, and Catherine Holloway. 2024. Enhancing Communication Equity: Evaluation of an Automated Speech Recognition Application in Ghana. In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’24), 394:1–394:16. Association for Computing Machinery. DOI: 10.1145/3613904.3641903 
  • Giulia Barbareschi, Midori Kawaguchi, Hiroaki Kato, Masato Nagahiro, Kazuaki Takeuchi, Yoshifumi Shiiba, Shunichi Kasahara, Kai Kunze, and Kouta Minamizawa. 2023. “I am both here and there” Parallel Control of Multiple Robotic Avatars by Disabled Workers in a Café. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’23), 1–17. DOI: 10.1145/3544548.3581124​​​​​​​
  • Katie Seaborn, Giulia Barbareschi, and Shruti Chandra. 2023. Not only WEIRD but “uncanny”? A systematic review of diversity in human–robot interaction research. International Journal of Social Robotics, 15(11), 1841–1870. Springer. DOI: 10.1007/s12369-023-00968-4

 

 

Scroll To Top