Ian Collingwood - Managing Director
BA Management Science & Marketing
Ian’s managerial experience is best described as “eclectic” having worked across a wide variety of creative industries including music, events, film, education, marketing and web strategy. Across all these industries he has placed the customer's experience at the heart of the business' success, which explains why it was a natural step to take on the role of MD at Amberlight. He is extremely resourceful, with a wealth of industry knowledge and experience, making him a valuable source of original thinking for both clients and employees.
He combines strong opinions with an extremely open mind and his innovative, entrepreneurial and courageous flair means that new grounds and opportunities are constantly being explored. His motivation and drive enables the Amberlight’s diverse team to pull together and strive toward a shared goal.
Filip Healy - Principal
MSc HCI, BA Psychology
A long standing member of the Amberlight team, Filip is a strong advocate of real-world contextual research methods which he uses to help clients fully understand the needs and abilities of end-users and to identify opportunities for innovation.
Filip's natural perfectionism make him a formidable force in driving Amberlight's consultancy work towards ever-greater innovation and excellence. His complete commitment to producing excellent work assures our clients that they are getting the very best each and every time they engage Amberlight, whilst his professional rigour makes him a popular mentor for junior staff.
GiGi Demming - Principal
MSc HCI, B.S Biopsychology and Cognitive Sciences
GiGi is not only one of our most experienced UCD practitioners, having spent a productive five years in the industry - she’s also incredibly fun and professional to work with.
As one of our two Principal Consultants she has managed projects that capture design requirements across the broadest possible range of users: from 7 year old video gamers to grandmothers to senior business executives. She’s researched and designed all manner of interactions and user experiences on mobile, web, gaming and iTV platforms.
Her research interests include novel interaction technologies, gaming, and models of online shopping. Prior to her joining Amberlight, in her native USA, she worked in the field of Neuropsychology studying Spatial Memory Consolidation, as well as Ergonomics and System Design. Outside of Amberlight, she enjoys photography, topical political satire and Bodean’s slow-smoked brisket.
Anna Herzberg - Operations Manager
BA English Lit., Grad. Con. Dip. Psychology
The skills Anna has acquired throughout her 9 years of research and project management experience make her an integral part to the seamless running of Amberlight’s day to day business. Her responsibilities include resource planning and overseeing major internal processes. Anna’s wit and patience also make her a pleasure to work with for both her colleagues and clients alike.
Outside the company, Anna has a keen interest in psychology, for which she’s just earned an Honours degree and is a connoisseur of fine whisky, preferably single malt...
Beata Hughes – Participant Recruitment and Office Manager
BA (Hons) English & Theology
Beata (pronounced bee-at-ah) is the hub of Amberlight, the glue that holds us together. She informs us that her name has no English translation but we’re convinced it’s Polish for Wonder-Woman, because we wonder how she does it all. From office management duties to participant recruitment, it’s hard to imagine how we’d cope without her.
She’s an active person who loves outdoor activities. When she’s not camping or hiking, she’s tracking down and picking porcini mushrooms in forests while avoiding ticks, as well as ballroom dancing, Polish folk dancing, or simply going to the gym.
Born and bred in Leicester, she obtained her degree from the University of Birmingham before heading to Japan to teach English for a year, and then backpacking around Australia and South East Asia. She eventually came to London with her fiancée, who she later married in a ceremony in Poland with lots of vodka.
As well as scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef with “lots of fish and sea cucumbers”, one of her greatest achievements is climbing Mount Fuji at night to see the sunrise in the morning, although it’s a shame it was raining.
She’s efficient, friendly, easy-going, enjoys a laugh… and her vodka. In short, she’s the best.
Robert Gillham - Senior Consultant
MSc HCI, BSc (Hons) Business Information Systems
One of the longest-serving inmates at Amberlight, Rob has successfully carried through an impressive variety of projects in his 5 year stretch. He has worked on the design of e-commerce and corporate websites both in the UK and internationally and has over the years developed specialised expertise in search engine usability, website localisation strategies and internationalisation of products and software systems.
When he ‘s not battling to help create better experiences for the world’s users, Rob can be found buried behind a stack of books, practising the French tongue, or hanging around some corner of an English field playing rugby or cricket.
Sanjeet Bhachu - Consultant
MPhil, BSc (Hons) Psychology & Computer Science
An experienced consultant with a strong background in web usability, Sanjeet constantly strives to deliver excellence to his clients. By developing strong relationships and applying his finely tuned understanding of users, he has helped create high-quality user experiences across both the web and mobile domains.
Before joining Amberlight, Sanjeet set up and ran a web development consultancy in his hometown of Dundee, where he developed a keen business sense and passion for user-centred design. Ready for a new challenge he jumped onto his motorbike, headed south, and hasn't looked back since. Off the pitch, you're likely to bump into him enjoying a couple of drinks in the pub or rocking away to some hard house or techno.
Sanjeet's experience and lighthearted approach makes him a popular team member and a desired resource to his clients: BBC Worldwide, AOL, Channel 4 and 02.
Saravjit Rihal - Consultant
PhD, MSc HCI, B.Sc. (Hons) Computer Science
Whether teaching undergraduates in Texas as part of his PhD, developing EDS’s traffic control system or running a prototyping team based in India (while still in the UK), Saravjit’s calm, confident manner conceals a burning passion for all things Human Factors - this is what makes him one of Amberlight’s leading consultants.
His work interests cover internationalism, localisation and ethnography, as well as a special understanding of mobile devices. He is also the office’s unbeaten Nintendo Wii tennis champion. Outside of work, Saravjit is an enthusiastic photographer, enjoys travelling and claims to be Nottingham Forest’s number 1 fan, but he has promised never to speak about it in public, and we hope that his other talents will allow our clients to overlook this rather glaring lack of good judgement.
Justin Tanimura - Consultant
MA Design Futures, BSc (Hons) Psychology
Having lived in several countries while growing up, Justin gives new meaning to the term cultural awareness. Combining a background in psychology and digital interactive technologies he can be described as an open-minded visionary who quietly oozes intelligence and a deep understanding of his fields of expertise.
He is a leading consultant on mobile devices and gaming platforms. Outside Amberlight, Justin enjoys unwinding on the basketball court or the snowboarding slopes; he's also a keen gamer, and boasts of completing Halo on legendary mode.
Amanda Bergknut - Consultant
MSc Interaction Design, BA Physical & Virtual Design
Amanda combines a strong business background with academic excellence and rigour. In her native Sweden she was a lecturer within the University of Malmo's Interaction Design Department, whilst running a user experience design consultancy in her spare time. Her clients included Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, Lund University, Malmo Aviation, City of Malmo and SIGMA – Sweden’s leader in IT solutions and consulting services.
Her calm exterior conceals a heady mix of creative flair and cool-headed analytical thinking. Amanda's experience and interests include interaction design for urban spaces, GIS (Geographic Information Systems), interactive visualisation techniques and online social networks.
Einav Avni - Consultant
MSc Human Centred Systems
In a previous incarnation Einav was a senior software tester for Tesco, but it was not until her first HCI module at university that her passion for user experience (UX) was born, when she noticed that systems alltoo often pass test scripts yet fail their toughest test: the users’ actual experience.
In her bid to right the world’s UX wrongs she completed her master’s degree at City University, before becoming an e-learning researcher and a freelance UX gunslinger. Her areas of interest include accessibility, e-learning, and requirements engineering, and her master’s thesis drove her to develop a set of heuristics for usable and accessible games-based learning.
Before launching her UX quest, Einav taught English to kids in Mongolia, the country from which her husband hails; she is also an avid traveller, a hard-working mum and an advanced scuba diver - in short, a real renaissance woman.
Chris LeFeaver - Consultant
MSc Ergonomics & Human Factors, BSc Psychology
Chris “Saturday Night” LeFeaver hails from Estonia, via Toronto, Canada where he gained a Bachelors degree in psychology before heading to the UK to take a Masters degree at Nottingham University. His interest in HCI grew from an early ambition to be an inventor, sketching new gadgets to solve everyday problems. As a Consultant with Amberlight he now gets to apply his creative head to our clients' real-world problems.
Chris is an insatiable gamer and nowadays it’s more than just a hobby, as he now co-ordinates Amberlight’s specialist gaming team. He is interested in research into ‘ubiquitous gaming’ particularly looking at how offline social interactions are reinvented in online virtual environments. And his investigations into in the subtleties of human social interactions also comes in handy out-of-hours – since he’s a keen (some would say mean) poker player.
Damien Livingston - Consultant
MSc Ergonomics and human factors, B.Sc.(Hons) Psychology
Damien brings together design, psychology and Human-Computer Interaction, which he utilises to really understand end users and how to design solutions that best meet their needs. Damien’s experience as a graphic designer for JC Decaux before joining Amberlight adds a creative element to his consultancy and user interface design work.
His easy going attitude and highly professional and diligent work ethic make him extremely popular with his clients (and his senior consultants :-). Damien likes to experience every angle of user centred design in terms of methods and doesn’t like limiting himself to just a few specialist areas. His professional interests lie in expanding his knowledge of different research methodologies, which he uses to always tailor his approach to the specific needs of each project.
Ryan Barkataki - Research Analyst
MSc Human Computer Interaction & Ergonomics, BSc Design and Computing
Ryan is a great example of the new breed of creative technologists who have grown up in a world where computers and digital interfaces are ubiquitous - making the historic division between artistic creativity and cutting-edge technology so blurred as to be meaningless.
He graduated with honours from Goldsmith’s College’s ground-breaking Design & Computing BSc course and followed this up with an MSc in Human Computer Interactions at UCL, where built a fully-functioning gesture recognition interface for his dorm-room television, and studied the effects of different personality types on user interfaces.
As well has his work for Amberlight, he works as a freelance session drummer and percussionist for various ultra-hip bands and well-known artists on the Domino and Virgin Records labels.
Angeliki Chrysafidi - Research Analyst
MSc HCI, BSc Psychology
The word ‘esoteric’ comes from the Greek esoterikos, meaning ‘within’ and is defined by the dictionary as ‘knowledge which is specialized or advanced in nature, available only to a narrow circle of highly educated people.’
In which case, this is the perfect way to describe Angeliki, who brings a number of truly diverse interests to her work with Amberlight, whether it be her master’s thesis studying expressive gestures to control computers, her psychology degree from Panteion University in Athens, her love of contemporary dance or her impressive command of English, German and Italian (as well as Greek of course).
