Projects per year
Personal profile
Research
Annalu Waller is a chartered rehabilitation engineer and Professor of Human Communication Technologies at the University of Dundee. Annalu directs the Dundee Assistive Technology and Augmentative and Alternate Communication (AT&AAC) Research Group.
Annalu has worked in the field of AAC since 1985, designing communication systems for and with nonspeaking individuals. She established the first AAC assessment and training centre in South Africa in 1987 before coming to Dundee in 1989. Her PhD developed narrative technology support for adults with acquired aphasia following stroke. Her primary research areas are human computer interaction, natural language processing, personal narrative and assistive technology. In particular, she focuses on empowering end users, including disabled adults and children, by involving them in the design and use of technology.
Annalu has been Principal Investigator on several interdisciplinary research projects together with industry and practitioners from rehabilitation engineering, special education, speech and language therapy, nursing and dentistry. She is a trustee/director of a number of national and international organisations representing disabled people.
Annalu was awarded an OBE in 2016 for services to people with Complex Communication Needs and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.
Annalu is an ordained priest in the Scottish Episcopal (Anglican) Church and is an honoray chaplain within the University Chaplaincy team.
Teaching
Annalu has over 30 years of teaching experience during which she has taught introductory programming (Pascal, C, Java); Database Systems; Human Computer Interaction and aspects of Assistive Technology to a variety of undergraduate, postgraduate and professional students. Her teaching philosophy stems from a desire to enable students to reach their individual potential and to equip them as future leaders.
Annalu and members of the Straight Talking Group deliver teaching on AAC and inclusive practice across disciplines. The group supports students, researchers and industry by sharing their expertise as people who use AAC. The group has developed bespoke workshops for 2nd year medical students and have introduced students to "the person behind the disability" for the past ten years.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Education/Academic qualification
Doctor of Philosophy, Providing narratives in an augmentative communication system., University of Dundee
1 Jan 1989 → 30 Apr 1992
Award Date: 30 May 1992
Master of Science, Implementing linguistic text anticipation in a writing device for the disabled., University of Cape Town
1 Jan 1984 → 30 Jun 1988
Award Date: 30 Nov 1988
Bachelor of Science, University of Cape Town
1 Feb 1980 → 1 Dec 1983
Award Date: 1 Dec 1983
Keywords
- QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Giving People a Voice - Telling The Story
Black, R. (Investigator) & Waller, A. (Investigator)
Project: Research
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What We Dream Comes to Fruition: Diversity, Artificial Intelligence and Science Fiction
Devarenne, N. (Investigator) & Waller, A. (Investigator)
Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities
14/01/19 → 13/01/22
Project: Research
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ACE-LP - Augmenting Communication Using Environmental Data to Drive Language Prediction (Joint with University of Cambridge)
Black, R. (Investigator), McKenna, S. (Investigator), Waller, A. (Investigator) & Zhang, J. (Investigator)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
1/02/16 → 31/01/20
Project: Research
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Training Task Switching to Decrease Temper Outbursts in People with PWS
Waller, A. (Investigator)
19/11/14 → 18/11/15
Project: Research
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Stories at the Dentist
Freeman, R. (Investigator) & Waller, A. (Investigator)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
1/01/13 → 30/09/14
Project: Research
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Building a balanced Tamil Corpus: EDA and Lexical Diversity Comparison with English
Vasuki Murugesan, Y. V. M. & Waller, A., 29 May 2025, 2025 International Conference on Data Science, Agents & Artificial Intelligence (ICDSAAI). IEEE, 6 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution
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Self-Created Film as a Resource in a Multimodal Conversational Narrative
Legel, M. (Lead / Corresponding author), Deckers, S. R. J. M., Soto, G., Grove, N., Waller, A., Van Balkom, H., Spanjers, R., Norrie, C. & Steenbergen, B., 10 Mar 2025, In: Multimodal Technologies and Interaction. 9, 3, 25.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Downloads (Pure) -
'What I think about when I type about talking': Reflections on Text-Entry Acceleration Interfaces
Waller, A., Griffiths, T. & Kristensson, P. O., May 2025, In: Communications of the ACM. 68, 5, p. 58-68 11 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile16 Downloads (Pure) -
A tutorial: self-created film as a semiotic resource in AAC
Legel, M. (Lead / Corresponding author), Soto, G., Grove, N., Waller, A., Deckers, S., van Balkom, H., Spanjers, R., Norrie, C. & Steenbergen, B., 21 Aug 2024, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Augmentative and Alternative Communication. 12 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Citation (Scopus)70 Downloads (Pure) -
Caregiver perceptions of the use of AAC by children and young people with Down's syndrome: An exploratory survey
Scougal, E., Melinger, A. & Waller, A., 8 Sept 2024.Research output: Contribution to conference › Abstract
Datasets
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TamilSpell: A Tamil spelling error corpus
Vasuki Murugesan, Y. V. M. (Creator), Waller, A. (Supervisor), Visser, J. (Supervisor) & Shanmugam , J. (Other), University of Dundee, 30 Aug 2024
DOI: 10.15132/10000260, https://dmail.sharepoint.com/:f:/s/ResearchServicesPublicDocuments/Eq_0r3ROThVCvhRF8aabh4gBe0wDQWvd9dufOP6KreRPIQ?e=DfNLDq
Dataset
Prizes
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Best Paper
Kristensson, P. O. (Recipient), Lilley, J. (Recipient), Black, R. (Recipient) & Waller, A. (Recipient), 6 Mar 2020
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
File -
Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapy
Waller, A. (Recipient), 20 Sept 2017
Prize: Election to learned society
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Activities
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All-Party Parliamentary Group for Assistive and Accessible Technology (ATech) Spring Reception
Waller, A. (Speaker), Slaughter, R. (Contributor) & Griffiths, T. (Contributor)
8 May 2025Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course
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What more can technology bring to AAC?
Waller, A. (Speaker)
15 May 2025Activity: Talk or presentation types › Keynote
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Inclusive Research Methods: How can we do research with non-or minimally-speaking autistic people?
Waller, A. (Speaker)
9 Jun 2025Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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Supporting extended conversation for people using Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC).
Waller, A. (Speaker)
1 May 2025Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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AI in AAC systems: current work and future research priorities
Slaughter, R. (Speaker), Griffiths, T. (Speaker) & Waller, A. (Speaker)
10 Sept 2024Activity: Talk or presentation types › Oral presentation
Press/Media
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New report to shape use of Assistive Technology for learners
Slaughter, R., Griffiths, T. & Waller, A.
13/05/25
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Research
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Context Aware Text Prediction for Enhancing Augmentative Communication
Black, R., Waller, A., Nandadasa, H., Suveges, T., McKenna, S., Kristensson, P. O., Zhang, J., McKillop, C. & Mckillop, C.
19/11/19
2 items of Media coverage
Press/Media: Research
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New app relieves patients’ fear of the dentist
Black, R., Waller, A., Menzies, R. & Herron, D.
17/06/14
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Research
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New app relieves patients’ fear of the dentist
Black, R., Waller, A., Menzies, R., Herron, D. & Herron, D.
17/06/14
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Research
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Speech App Helps Disabled People to Communicate at the Dentist
Black, R., Waller, A., Menzies, R., Herron, D. & Herron, D.
16/06/14 → 17/06/14
3 items of Media coverage
Press/Media: Research