Humphrey Curtis

Serving as Accessibility Co-Chair and on the Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee for ASSETS 2026 in Porto.

Recipient of the 2026 ACM SIGCHI Outstanding Dissertation Award for Wearable, Discreet Augmentative and Alternative Communication — the top doctoral thesis award in human-computer interaction.

Nominated for the 2026 King's Education Award, Colleagues' Choice, recognising meaningful contributions to education at King's College London.

Invited talk at the UK Stroke Association: Advokit: Co-Designing Inclusive AI Tools for People with Aphasia.

Invited talk at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP): Advokit: AI-Enhanced Digital Access to Welfare Services for Disabled People.

Attended and presented at CHI 2026 in Barcelona: "Computer Says No": Disabled Welfare Experiences and Envisioned Futures Under AI Governance.

PhD awarded by King's College London.

Second author on Microsoft Research tech report: Adults Using AAC to Inform the Design of Mimetic Agentic AI.

Exam marker for Human–Computer Interaction: 6CCS3HCI.

Working as a Research Associate at King's College London on Advokit, an inclusive, co-designed digital toolkit supporting disabled people in navigating public services; now adopted for UK-wide rollout by the Stroke Association and the DWP.

Published in Scientific Reports: Making smartglasses accessible: perspectives and prototypes from co-design with people with aphasia.

Served as Associate Chair for the BCS HCI 2025 Conference.

Passed PhD viva with minor corrections under Prof Graham Pullin and Prof Oussama Metatla.

Two papers accepted at ASSETS 2025, Denver: "An Old Bastard in Bright Orange Satin!": Zuzenna's Aphasia Diary and Lessons Learned from DIY AAC, and Life as an International Computer Science PhD Student with Cerebral Palsy.

Presented "I use video calling in all areas of my life": Understanding the Video Calling Experiences of Chronically Ill People at CHI 2025 in Yokohama, Japan.

Served as Web Chair for Cockney CHAI 2025.

Guest lecture at the University of Oklahoma HCI module: The Importance of Ethics in HCI, AI and Assistive Technology.

Awarded the King's Doctoral College Fund to support travel and presentation at CHI 2025 in Yokohama.

Awarded the Ken Rothman Award at the Health Research from Home Annual Event at Google HQ, King's Cross.

Talk at the Health Research From Home Showcase at Google HQ, King's Cross: Wearable and Discreet AAC Devices to Support Communication.

Best Paper nomination for Looking Past Screens: Exploring Mixed Reality and Discreet AAC Devices at ASSETS 2024 in St John's, Canada. Also served as Student Volunteer Chair and Research Mentor.

End-of-internship talk at Microsoft Research: Surveying Video Calling Experiences and Envisioning Digital Twins to Support Chronically Ill People.

Talk at the Aphasia Summit, City, University of London: Participatory Design & AAC: Looking Beyond Prominent Tech for Speech.

Talk at HCID Day, City, University of London: Not Everyone Needs a Device Like Stephen Hawking: Looking Beyond Prominent Technologies for Speech.

Summer Research Intern within the Ability Team at Microsoft Research, Redmond, under Martez Mott. Designed and evaluated LLM-powered agentic meeting-assistant prototypes for Microsoft Teams; first-authored a CHI 2025 paper from the work.

Presented two full papers and a late-breaking work poster at CHI 2024 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Winner of the NMES PhD Research Competition 2024.

Interviewed by Enabled in Academia on UK Disability History Month and personal research.

Talk at Transport for London (TfL): Improving the Accessibility of London Transport.

Best Student Paper at ASSETS 2023 for Watch Your Language: Using Smartwatches to Support Communication. Presented in New York.

Presented at the CUSP London PhD Conference.

Interviewed by Electronic Specifier on wearable AAC devices.

Attended the 2023 ABSW Science Technology Journalism Summer School.

Co-supervisor of a King's Undergraduate Research Fellowship project.

Best Paper at CHI 2023 for Envisioning the (In)Visibility of Discreet and Wearable AAC. Presented in Hamburg.

Presented State of the Art in AAC: A Systematic Review and Taxonomy at ASSETS 2022 in Athens, Greece. Recipient of the SIGACCESS Travel Scholarship.

Accepted to Doctoral Consortium at the 35th BCS HCI 2022 Conference, Keele University.

Student volunteer at CHI 2022 in New Orleans.

Began PhD in the Human-Centred Computing Research Group, King's College London.

Awarded a departmental KCL PhD Studentship covering fees, expenses, and living costs.

Awarded the MSc Academic Prize — highest grade average across the entire MSc Advanced Computing cohort at King's College London.