Associate Professor at the University of Edinburgh, where he heads the Children and Technology group as co-director of the Digital Education Research Center. He is director of the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science (heading the interdisciplinarity department) and a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s education panel. Dr. Manches’ research is concerned with learning interactions and their impact on pedagogy and design, including the potential of new technologies. In particular, he focuses on understanding the role of the body in STEM conceptual development and how we can use this role to support early learning – Embodied Learning (for example, through teacher gestures). Dr. Manches has received more than £1 million in funding for projects (Wellcome, ESRC, Carnegie, ScotPEN, EPSRC, NESTA, Innovate, NSF) primarily aimed at investigating the role of body language in early learning. In each project, she works closely with experts to gain a better view of the research and to strengthen the impact of her work. As a design researcher, Dr. Manches has co-created and launched many early learning projects. Dr. Manches’ most recent work began with investigating children’s understanding of personal data and how pedagogy can be improved to make data concepts more accessible. He is eager to hear the opinions of those working in the field, especially from industries related to ethical approaches to teaching children and personal data.