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Dr Steph Lay

Profile summary

  • Academic Related Staff
  • Senior Manager, Student Research
  • Digital Services
  • Chief Data Office
  • Data & Student Analytics
  • stephanie.lay

Professional biography

I'm a senior manager with 22 years of experience of working in analysis and insight for higher education, and I'm a qualified cognitive psychologist with a PhD in the perception of near-human faces. 

I've been with the Open University since 2002 in a range of data-related roles. My current role of senior manager for student research has given me the opportunity to balance team leadership and research design with technical project leadership and coding for data analysis. 

I work with a highly skilled group of data scientists and insight experts, and I've been able to maintain and hone my practical skills as a programmer and researcher while also developing as a trusted member of the senior team. 

I have a strong academic profile: I'm skilled in quantitative and qualitative research methods, and love research design and analysis. I've a passionate commitment to life-long learning, gaining 2 MSc's and a PhD while working full time. In addition, I've completed the OU's MA in Creative Writing, producing and publishing collection of short stories about the eerie and supernatural side of Milton Keynes.

Research interests

I've completed a PhD in psychology with the OU's Social Sciences faculty. My thesis was titled 'Exploring the Uncanny Valley', and my research looked at how we perceive faces that are nearly but not quite human, and particularly why some of them seem eerie and unsettling. 

I've completed an MA in creative writing, with a specialism in horror and speculative fiction. 

Publications

Circling Around the Uncanny Valley: Design Principles for Research Into the Relation Between Human Likeness and Eeriness (2016-12-01)
Lay, Stephanie; Brace, Nicola; Pike, Graham and Pollick, Frank
i-Perception, 7(6) (pp. 1-11)

Understanding SEaM student comments from a Big(ger)Data perspective: what are students saying? (2018-06)
Ullmann, Thomas; Lay, Stephanie; Coughlan, Tim; Lister, Katharine; Cross, Simon; Rienties, Bart and Whitelock, Denise
In : CALRG Annual Conference 2018 (18-19 Jun 2018, The Open University, Milton Keynes) (pp. 39-39)

The Uncanny Valley Effect (2015-03)
Lay, Stephanie Claire
PhD thesis The Open University

Scholarly insight Spring 2018: a Data wrangler perspective (2018-09-01)
Ullmann, Thomas; Lay, Stephanie; Cross, Simon; Edwards, Chris; Gaved, Mark; Jones, Edwina; Hidalgo, Rafael; Evans, Gerald; Lowe, Sue; Calder, Kathleen; Clow, Doug; Coughlan, Tim; Herodotou, Christothea; Mangafa, Chrysoula and Rienties, Bart
Open University UK, Milton Keynes.