Shaun Macdonald
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shaunmacdonald.bsky.social
Shaun Macdonald
@shaunmacdonald.bsky.social
⌨️HCI Researcher on Affective and Evocative Experiences
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 PhD from @uofglasgow.bsky.social
🤖Zoomorphic Robots, Affective Haptics, XR Prototyping
🎮Competitive Gamer, Art Enjoyer, Hope-low Leftist
♂️He/Him
🔗shaun-macdonald-hci.owlstown.net
Goodbye Liquorice, the cat I named and part of our family since 19 and a half years ago.

You’ve been part of my life and world since before I was an adult. Love you ❤️
November 11, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Trying to keep awake as I approach my 1am taxi for my 4am flight. It’s kind of like following in my father’s footsteps, except I’m not flying the plane.
September 25, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Paper presented and poster session by the sea attended!
September 23, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Insane view from my hotel in Sharm also
September 22, 2025 at 3:48 PM
In Sharm El Sheikh for @mobilehci.bsky.social this week. I’ll be giving my talk tomorrow at 12 on Safescreen, our cool security camera app that blocks screens in real time. Come say hi if you’re there!
September 22, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Finally a crumb
September 21, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Was ready to call Silksong a worthy successor to Hollow Knight and one of the best games I've played this year.

Reached beyond the bounds I assumed existed.

No actually Silksong is the probably best game I have played in years.
September 14, 2025 at 9:37 PM
🏆 ❗ Our paper just received the Interaction Design for International Development Award at #INTERACT2025. I'm so proud of the work and my coauthors!

Dancing with Data: privacy Compromises of Egyptian Women Reconciling Westernized Social Media Sharing with Local Cultural Values: shorturl.at/sTogU
September 10, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Last evening in Eindhoven, it’s been a super comfy place to visit
August 28, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Lovely time spent getting to know the IEEE RO-MAN community here in Eindhoven :)
August 27, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Flying out to IEEE #RO-MAN Conference 2025! I’ll be there presenting my Late Breaking Work:

AZRA: Extending the Affective Capabilities of Zoomorphic Robots using Augmented Reality!

Come say hi at either poster session or read the preprint at this link!
arxiv.org/abs/2508.08507
August 25, 2025 at 4:03 AM
Qoobo reading about themselves in the paper
August 21, 2025 at 11:41 PM
August 18, 2025 at 7:36 PM
I’m 33 today, a schnapszahl birthday according to my German friends!

It’s been a weird year navigating my first project lead role and the nightmare of the world outside, but many nice memories and successes to look back on.

Chief of which was equalling Steve for best mini golf score yesterday 😅
August 1, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Kendrick and SZA in Glasgow absolutely slammed
July 9, 2025 at 1:10 AM
Honoured to be featured as a guest lecturer in the upcoming Universitas Gadjah Mada DCSE Summer Course.

I’ll be speaking on the implications of emotional robotics, and ubiquitous emotional computing in general, on our future society❤️🤖

Should be good fun!

sc.dcseugm.id
July 7, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Awesome news! #RO-MAN 2025 accepted our Late Breaking Work showing off our technical innovations from the AZRAM project!

"AZRA: Extending the Affective Capabilities of Zoomorphic Robots using Augmented Reality"

Looking forward to showing it off in Eindhoven 🤖

Demo Video: youtu.be/SVHohefeliU
July 2, 2025 at 10:17 AM
Just out of a Karaoke party from a friends birthday and now off to a bachelors subcrawl, it’s a powerful Saturday
June 21, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Went to a #Pint25 of Science night, good fun as always.

Enjoyed my friend Tom’s talk on AR manipulation and won the coaster design contest for a cool pint glass :)
May 19, 2025 at 10:43 PM
🌱 Late spring vibes 🌱
May 19, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Goodbye Tokyo and Yokohama. It’s been fun ☺️
May 1, 2025 at 8:27 PM
At Skygarden in Yokohama Landmark Plaza which offers is inexplicably also a pingu fan cafe
May 1, 2025 at 1:35 AM
It went great! Despite being in a slightly odd session the audience got very engaged and I really the questions I got too. Now I can relax and explore 😎

Also I acquired this year’s plushie 😁
April 30, 2025 at 12:16 AM
My #CHI presentation of my TOCHI is today! 🌸

Come find out about my on the participatory prototyping of haptic comfort objects with socially anxious users 🌸

G301 16:20 :)
April 28, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Alright this is the new #CHI presentation high bar, Spors et al. presented their paper Human-Nature Relationships through Video Games as an interactive visual novel between the live presenter and their VN sprite coauthor
April 28, 2025 at 7:30 AM