Professor Andrew Manches is Chair in Children and Technology and Director of the Children and Technology group and the Children Interaction and Design cluster at Edinburgh Futures Institute.
He had led, and co-led, multiple national and international research projects with external funders including ESRC, AHRC, UKRI, Nesta, Wellcome Trust (see projects). His current research explores the role of interaction in how young children engage and understand a range of early learning concepts such as numbers, personal data, or nature. Core to his work is helping enable children to play a key role in the research.
Motivated by a previous career as an Infant and Special Educational needs teacher, Andrew is passionate about bridging research into children and technologies to practice. This ranges from the development of training for teachers alongside partners, for example, how gestures can support teaching, to the prototyping and sometimes commercialisation of physical products (e.g. STEM Charades).