Staff Profiles

Donal Phillips is Business Development Manager for the Creative Industries, based in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and provides project management on the Medialab initiative and strategic support on industry engagement. Donal’s background in the creative industries is predominantly in games development where he has worked as a sound designer, community manager and in production roles on a number of high profile projects including the Harry Potter and Sesame Street franchises and has breadth of experience collaborating with writers, designers, artists, performers, musicians and software developers.  An interest in innovation, entrepreneurship and start-ups led him to taking a role with NI Screen, as the lead for the Interactive Sector. Through this role, he developed a range of regional interventions to support the interactive entertainment industry and the emerging field of Immersive Technologies, supporting IP development and securing in-coming productions and establishing the first dedicated games incubator, The Pixel Mill, and was a co-investigator on Future Screens NI.

Darragh Lydon is a Lecturer in Games Development in Queen’s University Belfast. His primary degree is Computer Games Development with 5 years industry experience. Throughout this time in industry, he was involved in the development of 20 titles, consisting of both original IP and client projects. For the past six years he has been working in the area of infrastructure monitoring, using applied computer vision and deep learning techniques to gain insights on structural health of civil infrastructure. His research focus has been in the application of proactive maintenance of infrastructure based on information gathered from advanced monitoring methods paired with synthetic data generation and visualisation.

Dr Daniel Brice is a research fellow within the School of Arts, English and Languages to work in the new MediaLab, developing experiments and prototypes in the field of advanced media production. His previous research interests are developing multisensorial feedback systems to enhance user capabilities and/or immersion in VR/AR and conducting user studies to investigate user behaviour. A few examples of his research are proof of concepts in digital work instructions for Mixed Reality (MR), use of ultrasound haptics for virtual spider stimuli in VR and health and safety induction for VR. Specifically, Daniel will be utilising game engines to create impact within areas such as XR, Metaverse and virtual production.

Robbie has First Class Honours degree in Computing (with Game Development) from Ulster University, graduating in 2019. With a diverse portfolio, Robbie has contributed to the success of various projects across different sectors. Robbie began his career as a freelance Unity developer, contributing to the creation and release of numerous PC, mobile, and console titles within the local games industry in Northern Ireland. Alongside this he also worked with eXRt Intelligent Healthcare, where Robbie applied his skills as a VR developer to help create a ground-breaking physiotherapy platform for stroke survivors. Robbie has also collaborated with Ulster Touring Opera, where he utilized cutting-edge volumetric capture technology to craft an immersive AR experience, and Retinize - where he played a pivotal role in the launch of Animotive, a revolutionary real-time animation tool designed to transform remote 3D media production using immersive technology. Currently, Robbie serves as a Technician for the MediaLab, bringing a wealth of expertise in games technologies, VR & AR development, and a passion for discovering new innovations in media and immersive tech.