Hi, I'm James, a PostDoc @ Philipps Universität Marburg

We are living in incredible times with rapidly evolving technology that promises to drastically improve the ways we live, work and play. Much of this technology is fuelled by recent advances in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) from Tesla's self driving cars to conversational agents like Siri engaging in casual conversation. Despite these advancements, it is unclear how such AI agents should interact and work with humans in a predictable and desirable manner. The goal of my research is to understand these very dynamics.

Education

Macquarie University

Doctor of Philosophy, Psychology

April 2021 - Jul 2025

Macquarie University

Master's of Research, Psychology

Jan 2020 - Dec 2020

University of York

Master's of Science, Human Centred Interactive Technologies

Sept 2018 - Sept 2019

University of Waterloo

Bachelor of Computer Science, Minor Economics

Sept 2006 - May 2013

Work Experience

Philipps Universität Marburg

Postdoctoral Researcher

Sep 2025 - Present

Maluuba Inc. (acquired by Microsoft)

Business Program Manager

Jan 2012 - Jun 2017

Research in Motion (BlackBerry) Ltd.

Core UI Developer Intern

May 2011 - Aug 2011

Straightway Technologies Inc.

President & CEO

August 2005 - May 2010

Peer-Reviewed Journal Papers

James Simpson, Gaurav Patil, Hamish Stening, Ayman Bin Kamruddin, Daniel Somerville, Sigrid Seage, Patrick Nalepka, Mark Dras, Simon G. Hosking, Rachel W. Kallen, Michael J. Richardson, Deborah Richards. Can an AI agent lead human teams? 2026. Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans, 7, 100278.
James Simpson, Patrick Nalepka, Rachel W. Kallen, Mark Dras, Erik D. Reichle, Simon Hosking, Christopher Best, Deborah Richards, and Michael J. Richardson. Conversation Dynamics in a Multiplayer Video Game with Knowledge Asymmetry. Frontiers in Psychology, 7031

Peer-Reviewed Conference Papers

James Simpson, Hamish Stening, Gaurav Patil, Patrick Nalepka, Mark Dras, Rachel W. Kallen, Simon G. Hosking, Michael J. Richardson, and Deborah Richards. 2025. When Words Fall Short: The Case for Conversational Interfaces that Don’t Listen. In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI ’25), October 13–17, 2025, Canberra, ACT, Australia. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 11 pages. [PDF]
James Simpson, Hamish Stening, Patrick Nalepka, Mark Dras, Rachel W Kallen, Simon G Hosking, Michael J Richardson, and Deborah Richards. 2025. Towards Teams being Led by a Conversational Agent. In Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 43, 1–17. [PDF]
James Simpson. Has Wizard of Oz Testing Passed Its Use by Date? In Proceedings of the CSCW 2023 Workshop Supporting User Engagement in Testing, Auditing and Contesting AI. October 15, 2023. Minneapolis, MN, USA. ACM. New York, NY, USA. 5 Pages. [PDF][Video]
James Simpson. Is AI Mimicry Leading to Disappointment? In Proceedings of the CSCW 2023 Workshop Understanding and Mitigating Cognitive Biases in Human-AI Collaboration. October 14, 2023. Minneapolis, MN, USA. ACM. New York, NY, USA. 3 Pages. [PDF][Video]
James Simpson, Patrick Nalepka, Hamish Stening, Mark Dras, Rachel W. Kallen, Deborah Richards, Michael Richardson. How do People Perceive Collaborative Conversational Agents? In Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. July 26-29, 2023. Sydney, Australia. Cognitive Science Society. Seattle, WA, USA. Pg 3379. [PDF] [Poster]
James Simpson. 2023. Towards Collaborative Conversational User Interfaces for Team Training. In Companion Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI '23 Companion). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 211–213. [PDF] [Poster]
James Simpson, Michael Richardson, and Deborah Richards. 2022. A Wizard or a Fool? Initial Assessment of a Wizard of Oz Agent Supporting Collaborative Virtual Environments. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 299–301. [PDF][Poster]
James Simpson, Hamish Stening, Patrick Nalepka, Mark Dras, Erik D. Reichle, Simon Hosking, Christopher J. Best, Deborah Richards, and Michael J. Richardson. 2022. DesertWoZ: A Wizard of Oz Environment to Support the Design of Collaborative Conversational Agents. In Companion Publication of the 2022 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW'22 Companion). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 188–192. [PDF] [Video]
James Simpson and Cassandra Crone. 2022. Should Alexa be a Police Officer, a Doctor, or a Priest? Towards CUI Relationships Worth Having. In Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 20, 1–5. [PDF] [Video]
James Simpson, Patrick Nalepka, Cassandra Crone, Rachel W. Kallen, Marks Dras, Erik D. Reichle, Simon G. Hosking, Christoper Best, Deborah Richards, Michael J. Richardson. 2021. Tip of the Finger or Tip of the Tongue? The Effects of Verbal Communication. on Online Multi-Player Team Performance. In Companion Publication of the 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW '21 Companion), October 23-27, 2021, Virtual Event, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 5 pages. [PDF] [Video]
James Simpson and Deborah Richards. 2021. Taming the Interaction Jungle: Embodiment is All You Need. In CUI 2021 - 3rd Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI ’21), July 27–29, 2021, Bilbao (online), Spain. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 4 pages.[PDF] [Video]
James Simpson and Cassandra Crone. 2021. Can Alexa be a Team Player? In CUI 2021 - 3rd Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI ’21), July 27–29, 2021, Bilbao (online), Spain. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 4 pages. [PDF] [Video]
James Simpson. 2020. Are CUIs Just GUIs with Speech Bubbles? In Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 23, 1–3. [PDF] [Video]
James Simpson, Franziska Gaiser, Miroslav Macík, and Timna Breßgott. 2020. Daisy: A Friendly Conversational Agent for Older Adults. In Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 33, 1–3. [PDF] [Video]
James Simpson. 2019. How is siri different than GUIs?. In Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces: Companion (IUI '19). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 145-146. [PDF]
James Simpson and Michael Terry. 2011. Embedding Interface Sketches in Code. In Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM symposium adjunct on User interface software and technology (UIST '11 Adjunct). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 91-92. [PDF]

Granted Patents

Pasupalak, S.; Pantony, J. R.; Hsu, W.; Wu, Z.; Tregenza, P.; Suleman, K.; Simpson, J; McNamara, A.; Ismail, T.; “Conversational Agent” 2017, U.S. Patent No. 9575963B2
Simpson, J.; Pasupalak, S.; Musbah, M.; Lee, J.;”Interactive User Interface for an Intelligent Assistant”: 2016, U.S. Patent No. 9292254B2
Simpson, J. A.; Bos, J. C.; “Mechanism for Facilitation of Correct Card Insertion in Electronic Devices” 2013, U.S. Patent No. 8408930B1

Professional Service

Conference Refereeing

ACM CHI 2021-2023, 2025,2026
ACM CUI 2023-2024
ACM CSCW 2021, 2022
ACM HAI 2022
ACM IUI 2021, 2023, 2026
OzCHI 2022
INTERACT 2021

Program Committee

ACM IUI 2026

Conference Session Chair

ACM UIST 2021

Conference Student Volunteer

ACM CHI 2023
ACM CSCW 2021, 2023
ACM DIS 2019
ACM IUI 2019

Get in touch: hello at j2simpso.com

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