Dr. Bo Zhang

Ms Bo Zhang is a full time funded PhD candidate at UCD. She began her 4 years of PhD study at the SMARTlab, UCD with Chinese Council Scholarship, in the autumn of 2013. Her Principal Supervisor is Professor Lizbeth Goodman, who is one of top experts in the Creative Technology Innovation and Inclusive Design fields globally, and is founder and director of SMARTlab, the Inclusive Design Research Centre of Ireland @ UCD and the MAGIC Multimedia and Games Innovation Centre in London. Previously, Bo worked as a Web designer and developer for one year in China. In December 2013, she won a competitive Travel Scholarship to speak at the London BETT Global Conference. In January 2014, as a team leader, she joined the 3D Printer Competition which was organised by Academy Innovation in UCD; there she won a new 3D printer. In December 2014, she won a prestigious scholarship to visit New York University and The IDCR of OCAD University-Ontario College of Art and Design University to join two international conferences respectively. In October 2015, she represented UCD as a player of UCD International Ladies’ GAA Team to participated in the 20th Edition of the 2015 FEXCO Asian Gaelic Games in Shanghai, China, when they won the silver medal. Currently, Bo is participating in several projects of SMARTlab and the IDRC at UCD and also working as a Laboratory Demonstrator/ Tutorial Tutor in Computer Science at UCD. Her current research topic for the PhD is: 3D virtual worlds design for cross-cultural collaborative learning between China and Ireland. Bo is proficient in C and Java computer languages and has one year of experience coding in Python as well as many years of experience in the use of technology-enhanced learning tools, 3D design and web design. Throughout her studies, she has gained useful applied research and technological skills from her hands-on work on educational technology and her continued engagement in digital media projects.