Dr. Owen Noel
Newton Fernando
Human-Computer Interaction · Learning with AI · Multimodal Interfaces · Mobile Augmented Reality
Senior Lecturer at the College of Computing & Data Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
- ofernando@ntu.edu.sg
- Office
- College of Computing & Data Science, NTU Singapore
- Scholar
- Google Scholar — 1,656 citations · h-index 21
Dr. Fernando is a Senior Lecturer at the College of Computing & Data Science at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interests involve Crowdsourcing & Social Computing, Mobile Augmented Reality, Multimodal interfaces & interactive systems, and Human-Computer Interaction.
He has published his works in highly competitive journals — MIT Press’ Presence, Oxford Press’ Interacting with Computers, and IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics — and prestigious conferences including ACM DIS, ACM CSCW, IEEE ISMAR, and ACM SIGGRAPH.
His research has received several international awards, including recognition from Laval Virtual Revolution and Nokia UbiMedia MindTrek. Dr. Fernando has been the recipient of the Japanese Government (MEXT: Monbukagakusho) Scholarship.
Currently he serves as Associate Editor for Entertainment Computing (Elsevier) and has previously served as guest editor of the AHCI journal and Associate Editor for ACM Computers in Entertainment.
Research Areas & Projects
HCI Research
Designing interactive, human-centred systems. Covers affective state detection in programming, AI in educational HCI, pose estimation fitness apps, and mobile AR.
Explore →Learning with AI
AI as an interactive learning partner. AlgoGPT, AIView, NALA-Assess, NALA-Teach — deployed at scale in NTU and NIE courses.
Explore →Interactive Learning Technologies
Game-based learning, AI-powered Learning Companion for academic writing, and interactive course materials for higher education.
Explore →Multimodal Technologies
AI sports coaching & class observation, automated lesson microgenre analysis with LLMs and computer vision, and virtual anatomy learning.
Explore →Selected Publications
Lindong Li … Owen Noel Newton Fernando, Weisi Lin. “RelPosGAR: Hierarchical relative position-aware interaction modelling for weakly supervised skeleton-based group activity recognition.” Pattern Recognition 176, 113251. Tier 1A · IF 7.6
P. S. Win, G. W. Qiming, M. Bansal, O. C. Ann, L. F. Siong, O. N. N. Fernando. “NALA-Assess: A Learning Analytics–Driven Generative AI Agent for Self-Regulated Learning.” Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference 2026, NIE/NTU, Singapore.
W. Z. Chee, C. A. Ong, O. N. N. Fernando. “Transformative Pedagogy in Object-Oriented Programming: The COOP Model and AI-Enhanced Case-Based Learning.” TENCON 2025, IEEE Region 10 Conference, Sabah, Malaysia, pp. 973–977.
D. K. Kothari, O. N. N. Fernando. “Enhancing Human-Computer Interaction through AI: A Study on ChatGPT in Educational Environments.” IEEE CAI 2024, Singapore, pp. 500–503.
A. D. Cheok, R. T. K. C. Tan, R. L. Peiris, O. N. N. Fernando et al. “Metazoa Ludens: Mixed Reality Interaction and Play for Small Pets and Humans.” IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics 41(5), pp. 876–891. Tier 1A · IF 8.7