Dr. Cyriel Diels has a background in Psychology and Human Factors. Following his degree in experimental psychology at Utrecht University, his doctoral studies investigated self-motion perception and negative side effects associated with simulated and virtual environments at Loughborough University. Since then, he has worked in the field of driver behaviour and performance at the Transport Research Laboratory for a range of clients including Department for Transport, Highways Agency, European Commission, and various commercial organisations. Since 2009, he has been acting as the UK representative and chair of the national shadow committee of ISO Working Group 8 on in-vehicle Human Machine Interfaces. Following on from this he joined Jaguar Land Rover where he worked as a Human Factors specialist within advanced product development and research. In 2012, he started his current position as senior lecturer in Human Factors at the Industrial Design department with a particular focus on automotive and transport design.

Coventry University is a forward-looking modern university whose roots can be traced back to 1843 to the Coventry School of Design. With a proud tradition as a provider of high quality education and a focus on multidisciplinary research, the University has established a robust academic presence regionally, nationally and across the world. Through its links with leading-edge businesses and organizations in a variety of industries, Coventry University is able to offer its 24,000+ students access to work placement opportunities and state-of-the-art equipment and facilities – on both its Coventry and London campuses – in all disciplines from health, sport science and performing arts to industrial design, engineering and computing. In recent years Coventry’s student satisfaction levels and teaching quality have been rated amongst the best in the UK, which in turn has led to impressive rises in every major university league table. As of 2015 the institution is the country’s top modern university in the Guardian University Guide – in which it ranks 15th overall – the Complete University Guide, and the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, which for the past three years has named Coventry the ‘Modern University of the Year’. Coventry is recognised internationally for its expertise in peacebuilding, serious games and disaster management, and for the world-leading calibre of its engineering and design graduates – particularly in the automotive field. It was awarded the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2015 in recognition of its international growth and success over the past six years. The University’s city centre campus itself is continually developing and evolving, and a £100 million-plus investment in a new student centre, engineering and computing building and science and health facility is playing a key role in modernising the entire learning experience.