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Aisling creates and studis interactive media systems for enhancing reflection, learning and communication. Grounded within the fields of human-computer-interaction, multimedia, and interaction design, her work is motivated by a desire to carefully integrate computational processes into everyday mediated experiences. By positing the computer as an active, creative partner enmeshed in our world, our daily computational interactions move beyond the confines of the screen and keyboard into an embedded dynamic environment of networked objects and smart spaces.

Interactive Neurorehabilitation

Aisling currently co-leads the Interactive Neurorehabilitation Lab at Virginia Tech with Dr. Thanassis Rikakis. Here, she works with an interdisciplinary team of designers, physiotherapists, computer scientists and engineers on developing light-weight, cost-effective systems for conducting stroke rehabilitation in the home. Stroke is the leading cause of disability in the United States, and the most common neurological disorder worldwide. While recovery can be significantly assisted by long-term therapy, the cost of therapy, availability of facilities and experts, as well as transportation to clinical facilities can limit the amount of supervised therapy that stroke survivors receive. Home based therapy has emerged as a potential viable alternative that can be effective in conjunction with therapy in the clinic or even as the primary mode of therapy. Building on over 10 years of research conducted across multiple institutions, the INR team is working towards creating automated systems for unsupervised rehabilitation in the home. This research is part of an ongoing collaboration with colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University, Arizona State University and Emory Rehabilitation Hospital

The lab is part of a recently award Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) grant entitled "Sensor Technology Applied to Rehabilitation in Stroke - STARS." This five year, $5 million award is generously supported by funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR).

Relevant recent publications:
A. Kelliher, S. Zilevu, T. Rikakis, T. Ahmed, Y. Troung, S. Wolf. (2020). Towards standardized processes for physical therapists to quantify patient rehabilitation, ACM SIGCHI 2020 (CHI’20), Hawaii, USA, April 25 – 30, 2020.
A. Kelliher, S. Zilevu, T. Rikakis, S. Wolf. (2019). Towards the development of semi-supervised rehabilitation systems for the home, in Proceedings of the Technology, Mind, Society Conference, Washington DC, October 3 – 5, 2019.
A. Kelliher, A. Gibson, E. Bottlesen, E. Coe. (2019). Designing modular rehabilitation objects for interactive therapy in the home. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 251–257.
T. Rikakis, A. Kelliher, J. Choi, H. Sundaram. (2018). Progressive cyber-human intelligence for social good. Interactions 25, 4 (June 2018), 52-56. 
T. Rikakis, A. Kelliher, J. Choi, JB. Huang, K. Kitani, S. Zilevu, and S. Wolf. (2018). Semi-automated home-based therapy for the upper extremity of stoke survivors. In Proceedings of the 11th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference (PETRA ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 249–256.

Design Research

Aisling engages in design research across a broad set of areas including research through design, speculative practice, design futures, and critical feminist design. This research is published in a wide variety of venues including ACM SIGCHI, ACM TOCHI, ACM DIS, IEEE Multimedia, ISEA, and Futures Journal. Her 2020 co-authored paper "Making Design Memoirs: Understanding and Honoring Difficult Experiences" received an Honorable Mention award at CHI 2020.

Relevant recent publications:
A. Kelliher. (2020). Reclaiming and Commemorating Difficult Felt Experiences, forthcoming at ISEA 2020, October 2020.
L. Devendorf, K. Anderson, A. Kelliher. (2020). The Fundamental Uncertainties of Mothering: Honoring Endurance, Struggle, and Contradiction", forthcoming in ACM TOCHI, 2020.
L. Devendorf, K. Anderson, A. Kelliher. (2020). Making Design Memoirs: Understanding and Honoring Difficult Experiences, Honorable Mention, ACM SIGCHI 2020 (CHI’20), Hawaii, USA, April 25 – 30, 2020.
A. Kelliher, S. Zilevu, T. Rikakis, T. Ahmed, Y. Troung, S. Wolf. (2020). Towards standardized processes for physical therapists to quantify patient rehabilitation, ACM SIGCHI 2020 (CHI’20), Hawaii, USA, April 25 – 30, 2020.
R. Patibanda et al. (2020). Motor memory in HCI workshop, ACM SIGCHI 2020 (CHI’20), Hawaii, USA, April 25 – 30, 2020.
J. Berzowska, A. Kelliher, D. Rosner, M. Ratto, and S. Kite. (2019). Critical Materiality: Creating Toolkits and Methods for Engaging Materiality in HCI. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '19). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 691-694.
A. Behbahani, W. Lages, A. Kelliher (2019). Multisensory Design Probe: An Approach for Reducing Technostress. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 459–466.
A. Kelliher. (2018). Learning from Lonely Hearts: Using Advice Columns in User Centered Design Education, in Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper LBW578, 1–6.

Creativity, Arts, and Technology

Aisling has worked at the intersection of design, art, and technology for almost 20 years, engaging in theoretical, analytical, and praxis activities. She has curated media exhibits, led NSF-sponsored creativity network grants, developed numerous software systems and platforms, and written and spoken about her art/technology interests in international publications and national radio. She was the editor of the "Artful Media" Column in IEEE MultiMedia from 2013 - 2018, and is the technical correspondent on the show "Culture File" on Irish national radio.

Relevant recent publications and radio shows:
TikTok too, June 26, 2020
Plant Influencers, March 16, 2020
Good Information Hygiene, February, 2020
Precision Farming, Nov 19 2019
Pinterest's Artisinal Data, Oct 23, 2019
China and Silicon Valley, March 5, 2019
Plotting the future of transport and sex at CES 2019, Jan 18, 2019

A. Kelliher. (2020). Reclaiming and Commemorating Difficult Felt Experiences, forthcoming at ISEA 2020, October 2020.
T. Rikakis, A. Kelliher, J. Choi, H. Sundaram. (2018). Progressive cyber-human intelligence for social good. Interactions 25, 4 (June 2018), 52-56. 
A. Kelliher and B. Barry. (2018). Designing Therapeutic Experiences with AI in Mind, forthcoming at the AAAI 2018 Symposium, Designing the User Experience of Artificial Intelligence, March 2018
A. Kelliher. (2017). ACM Creativity and Cognition Conference 2017, Scientific Conferences Report, IEEE MultiMedia, Vol 24, Issue 4, Oct - Dec 2017
A. Kelliher. (2016). Technology and the Arts: Educational Encounters of the Third Kind, IEEE MultiMedia, Vol 23, Issue: 3, July-Sept. 2016.
A. Kelliher. (2015). Machines Learning Culture. IEEE MultiMedia, Volume: 22, Issue: 2, Apr.-June 2015.
D. Byrne and A. Kelliher. (2015). Identifying community resources using data mining, crowdsourcing, and networked co-curation, in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Electronic Art, (ISEA '15), Aug 14 – 18, Vancouver, Canada.

Systems, tools, and platforms

Aisling analyzes how people interact with and use technological systems, as well as leading the development of a variety of tools and platforms for diverse audiences. She co-lead the creation of XSEAD, an online platform for promoting innovative work across science, engineering, art and design (SEAD). XSEAD was supported by the National Science Foundation, Grant No. 1141631. She has created numerous mediated storytelling systems and analyzed how people use systems to organize and understand their personal media collections.

Relevant recent publications:
T. Rikakis, A. Kelliher, T. Nicewonger, R. Swearer, M. Holt. (2019) Transdisciplinary and Trans-sector Knowledge Ecosystems leverage interdependencies, promote agency and advance knowledge democracies" presented at the European Conference on Education, London, UK, July 19 - 21, 2019.
R. Gulotta, A. Kelliher, J. Forlizzi. (2017). Digital systems and the experience of legacyIn Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS ’17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 663–674.
R. Gulotta, D. Gerritsen, A. Kelliher, J. Forlizzi. (2016). Engaging with Death Online: An Analysis of Systems that Support Legacy-Making, Bereavement, and Remembrance, in Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 736-748.
D. Byrne and A. Kelliher. (2015). Identifying community resources using data mining, crowdsourcing, and networked co-curation, in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Electronic Art, (ISEA '15), Aug 14 – 18, Vancouver, Canada.
R. Gulotta, A. Sciuto, A. Kelliher, and J. Forlizzi. (2015). Curatorial Agents: How Systems Shape Our Understanding of Personal and Familial Digital Information, in Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3453-3462.
D. Byrne, A. Kelliher, T. Rikakis, D. Cox. (2014). Showcasing Impact: curating art/science integration within the XSEAD platform, in Proceedings of the Curating the Digital: Spaces for Art and Interaction Workshop at CHI 2014, April 26 - 27 2014.
D. Byrne, A. Kelliher, T. Rikakis, D. Cox. (2013). XSEAD: A Community Platform For Art-Science Integration, IEEE Multimedia, Oct. 2013 (Vol 20, no. 4)
R. Spicer, Y.-R Lin, A. Kelliher and H. Sundaram. (2012). NextSlidePlease: Authoring and Delivering Agile Multimedia Presentations, November 2012, ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications (TOMCCAP).
D. Byrne, A. Kelliher, G. Jones. (2011). Life Editing: Third-Party Perspectives on Lifelog Content, in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1501-1510.