School of Computer Science, University of Manchester

Mark van Harmelen is both a freelance consultant and an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Computer Science at the University of Manchester. Formerly Mark has worked as a Lecturer and as a Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, as a Senior Researcher at Matsushita Electric's (National Panasonic's) Tokyo Research Laboratory, and as a Cabinet appointee in the South African Government.

Mark's research career has mostly been centered around human-computer interaction and design methodology. The seminar describes some of that research, which might well be called a search for a 'holy grail': A methodological unification of the fields of human-computer interaction and software engineering. Mark's later work for the South African Government was concerned with facilitating the establishment of a government-sponsored ICT laboratory for national human resource development and socio-economic improvement. This laboratory (The Meraka Institute) was established in 2005. As a result of working in South Africa, and becoming aware of severe teacher shortages, Mark changed
research areas, and currently works in the field of technology enhanced learning.