Rate My Professor Luciana Blaha

Luciana Blaha is an Assistant Professor in the Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University, where she leads the Intelligent Automation Systems Lab. Her research investigates intelligent automation systems, including artificial intelligence, robotic process automation and chatbots, and their impact on organisational behaviour, drawing on science and technology studies, business management and computing science. She explores emerging behaviours and stakeholder understandings of technology within and outside organisations, with current projects addressing public sector AI adoption and procurement, robotics adoption and strategy, digitalisation maturity, and digital twin human behaviour modelling. Blaha has delivered guest lectures, seminars and conference presentations in the UK, Dubai, Taiwan, the US and Australia on topics including intelligent automation, management, AI and qualitative research methods.

She holds a BA (Hons) in Business Leadership and Human Resource Management with Placement Year from the University of Worcester (2014), an MLitt in Art and Business from the University of Aberdeen (2015), and a PhD in Business Management and Intelligent Automation from the University of Aberdeen (2021). Prior to academia, Blaha accumulated over ten years of industry experience in the public, private and third sectors, focusing on HR training and development, customer service and marketing. She is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2020), a member of the Chartered Management Institute, and serves on the editorial board of Scottish University Press and the Scottish AI Playbook. Blaha received the British Federation of Women Graduates Grant (2020), the Elphinstone Scholarship (2018) and the School of Social Sciences Early Career Researcher of the Year Award (2023). She holds roles including MSc Engineering Management Programme Design Director, AI Futures Group Member, and course leader for several technology and business modules, and contributes to initiatives such as the TransiT Digital Twinning hub.