Ava is educator, architect and researcher at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. She is Associate Professor of Media Architecture and Urban Digital Interaction, the director of the MPhil/PhD Programme 'Architectural Space and Computation', and the Departmental Graduate Tutor for the Architecture and Digital Theory MPhil/PhD Programme. On the MRes/MSc Architectural Computation, she leads the studios: Body as Interface and City as. The main focus of her research is in the area of Architecture, Interaction Design, and Ubiquitous Computing that has developed since 2001 through teaching and research positions she held at UCL, London.
Her research is practice based where she brings knowledge and expertise in the areas of human-computer interaction and performance, with a focus on sensory environments, and human behaviour within the built environment.
Ava leads a living ‘Media Architecture’ lab environment in which she investigates the design, development, implementation and evaluation of experiences mediated through responsive, and location-based computing within the urban context with the focus on action research and co-creation with end-users communities ‘in the Wild’. She is the Principle Investigator of the EPSRC ‘Research in the Wild’ funded project 'Screens in the Wild’, resulting in a unique longitudinal ‘living lab, environment of four interactive networked screens (connected through video feed) in London and Nottingham (UK).
Ava has published extensively on the transformation and acquisition of urban space through new media and has been instrumental in building a network of key players (academia, media art, and the industry) that addresses spatial, social and interactional issues in the design and implementation of Media Architecture and urban digital Interaction. Ava is a programme chair and a member of the organising committee for the Media Architecture Biennale, form 2012 to 2020. Her recent publications include a Special Issue on Human-Building Interaction. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI): 26, 2, Article 6 (April 2019). ACM. NY.