Healthcare Researcher and Developer Homepage

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Petar Jerčić

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Healthcare Scientist, Serious Games Designer and Developer, Software Engineer, System Architect, Senior Lecturer

International healthcare researcher and software engineer in Serious Games with experience in entrepreneurship, academia and industry making groundbreaking medical software using human physiology and affect. Major focus includes System Architecture, Data Analysis, Game Design and Development for supporting Decision-making based on Emotion-regulation. Key strengths are Analytical Skills, Research Design, Outcomes Evaluation, Lecturing, Scientific Writing, and Cross-platform Software Development. Motivated by developing quality assurance and cutting-edge applications with particular interest in real-time systems, working independently or managing teams using agile methods in development cycle.


Positions and Professional Affiliations

Research scientist in healthcare at Kana, Netherlands

Visiting Researcher at University Medical Center Groningen, Netherlands


Research Focus

The research is mainly focused on measuremens and interpretation of emotional states in users with the use of psychophysiological methods and equipment. These have been integrated in serious games for the biofeedback training in emotion-regulation, with the goal to improve human decision-making on the task. In order to achieve this, knowledge and understanding of fundamental theories of Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, Neuroengineering and Affective Computing has been employed. Mentioned theories also explain the cognitive and emotional aspects of the players interacting with serious games.


Research Interests

Biofeedback, Emotions, Human physiology, Emotion-regulation, Decision-making, Serious Games, Game Design and Development, Brain-computer interfaces, Affective computing, Machine learning


Key Skills

  • Python (NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, Seaborn), Matlab, R
  • C/C++/C#
  • CMake, GTest
  • Lean, Agile, Scrum

Education

  • Ph.D. in Computer Science, Blekinge Institute of Technology (Sweden)
  • Research focus: Game Design and Development
  • PhD dissertation: The Effects of Emotions and Their Regulation on Decision-making Performance in Affective (Digital) Serious Games

  • M.Sc. in Computer Science, University of Split (Croatia)

  • MS thesis: Business layer logic in information system for job applications

  • Mindfulness MBSR teacher, Mindful Academy (Spain)


Service

  • Invited speaker at the 8th International Week at HAN University of Applied Sciences (Nijmegen, Netherlands)
  • Invited speaker at Human Factors NL Congress 2019 (Sosteberg, Netherlands)
  • Organizational board member for Games for Health Journal
  • Reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, Games for Health Journal, Games for Health Journal, Robotics, New Ideas in Psychology
  • Reviewer for International Conference on Entertainment Computing (IFIP), International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games for Serious Applications (VS-Games), IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC 2019), International Conference on Entertainment Computing (IFIP), Joint Conference on Serious Games
  • Reviewer for Springer Workshop on Digital Transformation for an Inclusive Society

Awards and Honors

  • The Honorary Mention Best Paper Award, IFIP-ICEC ‘Entertainment Computing’ 2019 and 2018

Languages

  • English (fluent)
  • German (beginner)
  • Japanese (intermediate)
  • Swedish (beginner)
  • Dutch (beginner)
  • Croatian (native)