Dr Paula Alexandra Silva is a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researcher and practitioner, whose passion is to understand how to leverage technology to create a better future for us all. She is also a passionate teacher who strives to create exceptional learning experiences for her students. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Informatics Engineering, within the University of Coimbra. Before she held appointments as lecturer at a number of universities, as Postdoc Fellow at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and as Senior Scientist at Fraunhofer Portugal, where she managed the Human-Computer Interaction area and group. She earned her PhD in Computer Science from Lancaster University, United Kingdom, where she wrote a dissertation on ‘Designing User Interfaces with the BadIdeas Method: Towards Creativity and Innovation’, under the supervision of Professor Alan Dix. Tweet or follow the tweets at #palexa and feel free to be in touch for a chat about work.
For more on my professional activities and research outcomes take a look at my online profiles:
News and updates
May 24. Received the Best Paper Award at ACM SIGCHI CHI 2024, the premier conference in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), with a paper titled Understanding Feedback in Rhythmic Gymnastics Training: An Ethnographic-Informed Study of a Competition Class in a joint effort with Leonor Portugal da Fonseca and Francisco Nunes.
List of selected publications in the last five years
- Tejo, L. C., & Silva, P. A. (2025). Engaging with ethics in the HCI design process: A study of ethical design practice in different work contexts. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 205, 103634. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2025.103634
- Ivan, L., Marston, H. R., Prabhu, V. G., Großschädl, F., Alexandra Silva, P., Buttigieg, S. C., Öztürk Çalıkoğlu, H., Bilir Koca, B., Arslan, H., Kanozia, R., Browning, M. H. E. M., Freeman, S., & Earle, S. (2025). Successful Aging Across Middle Versus High-Income Countries: An Analysis of the Role of eHealth Literacy Associated With Loneliness and Well-Being. The Gerontologist, 65(1), gnae170. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnae170
- Portugal da Fonseca, L., Nunes, F., & Silva, P. A. (2024). Understanding Feedback in Rhythmic Gymnastics Training: An Ethnographic-Informed Study of a Competition Class. Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’24), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642434
- Silva, P. A., & Motti, V. G. (2024). Evaluating a Multi-Component Classroom Intervention to Teach Accessibility in Higher Education: A Case Study With Persona Cards. IEEE Access, 12, 20299–20312. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3360135
- Amorim, P., Paiva, J., Silva de Lima, J., Portugal da Fonseca, L., Martins, H., & Silva, P. A. (2023). Lessons learned from investigating patients’ and physiotherapists’ perspectives on the design of a telerehabilitation platform. Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 0(0), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/17483107.2023.2287160 (also available here)
- Nunes, F., Rato Grego, P., Araújo, R., & Silva, P. A. (2023). Self-report user interfaces for patients with Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Diseases: App review and usability experiments with mobile user interface components. Computers & Graphics, 117, 61–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2023.10.009
- Pilacinski, A., Pinto, A., Oliveira, S., Araújo, E., Carvalho, C., Silva, P. A., Matias, R., Menezes, P., & Sousa, S. (2023). The robot eyes don’t have it. Heliyon, 9(8), e18164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18164
- Silva, P. A., & Santos, R. (2023). An opinion mining methodology to analyse games for health. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 82(9), 12957–12976. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-022-14070-w
- Badia, S. B. i, Silva, P. A., Branco, D., Pinto, A., Carvalho, C., Menezes, P., Almeida, J., & Pilacinski, A. (2022). Virtual Reality for Safe Testing and Development in Collaborative Robotics: Challenges and Perspectives. Electronics, 11(11), Article 11. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11111726
- Jordan, P., & Silva, P. A. (2022). Charting Science Fiction in Computer Science Literature. In Z. Lv & H. Song (Eds.), Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (pp. 100–126). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99188-3_7
- Jordan, P., & Silva, P. A. (2021). Science Fiction—An Untapped Opportunity in HCI Research and Education. In M. M. Soares, E. Rosenzweig, & A. Marcus (Eds.), Design, User Experience, and Usability: UX Research and Design (pp. 34–47). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78221-4_3
