About Chris

Chris is a Lecturer in Engineering Design and Manufacture. His areas of interest include the physical / digital divide, deskilling the engineering design process, and the next generation of computational design systems.
Chris has been a member of the Design and Manufacturing Futures Lab since its inception, first as a post-doc researcher, and now as a Lecturer and Project Lead. His work areas have ranged from technical engineering design processes, to big-data analysis and real-time analytics of engineering progress and performance, computational design and interaction systems, effective global engineering management, and creativity and innovation in complex and constrained design scenarios.
This has given him expertise in how engineers can and should design in a world of ever more complex machines and systems, and how the next generation of processes and cutting-edge computational systems can enable them to produce outputs that meet the needs of the future.
He is particularly interested in how we can bridge the physical / digital divide in design, and use computation to increase capability while reducing the workload and skill requirements of engineering activities. Through his work he aims to enable engineers to work rapidly and effectively in both the digital and physical worlds, supported by cutting-edge systems that automatically analyse ideas and designs, suggest solutions, monitor progress, and perform simulations and tests, giving engineers the freedom, knowledge, and capability to explore the design space and generate innovative, high-performance outputs.
Projects
Publications
- Establishing and evaluating approaches for mixed media hybrid prototyping using Lego and additive manufacturing
- Users evaluating Physical, Virtual, and Mixed Reality prototypes exhibit differential DLPFC brain activity
- A knowledge framework of environment reconstruction methods for mixed reality prototype applications
- A mixed-method approach in ergonomic analysis utilising personalised data dashboards
- Spatial computing in design: opportunities and challenges of a new technological paradigm
- fNIRS, EEG, ECG, and GSR reveal an effect of complex, dynamically changing environments on cognitive load, affective state, and performance, but not physiological stress
- Assessment of large language models for use in generative design of model based spacecraft system architectures
- Investigating the influence and interplay of physical and virtual traits on the user perception of Mixed Reality prototypes
For more publications, please visit
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/people/person/Chris-Snider-0eb01033-9ff9-468d-a2de-6b08eceaebc5/