David Melhart

Research areas

Dr. David Melhart is an Assistant Professor at the SDU Metaverse Lab, specialising in affective computing, human–computer interaction, and game user research. His work explores the emotional dimension of interactive digital experiences and develops computational models and tools that capture, interpret, and respond to human affect. Central to his research is the pursuit of Human-Centred AI, with a strong focus on how games and intelligent systems can support individuals with ADHD and autism through improved attention, self-management, and personalised care.

Dr. Melhart’s research spans affect modelling, player experience prediction, ethically aligned AI in games, and multimodal annotation tools for affective computing. His contributions include a widely adopted affect annotation platform, a large-scale affective dataset, and influential studies on motivation and engagement prediction within game environments. His recent work has placed increasing emphasis on transparent, responsible AI methodologies and interdisciplinary collaboration across psychology, HCI, and machine learning. His practical work has explored automated annotation frameworks leveraging multimodal large-language models. He is a Co-Founder and Human-Centred AI Lead at Humanfeedback.ai, where he leads the research effort.

He completed his PhD in Game Research at the Institute of Digital Games (University of Malta), supervised by Prof. Georgios N. Yannakakis and Prof. Antonios Liapis, where his dissertation examined generalisable affect prediction across game genres. Before joining the University of Southern Denmark, he held roles as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Malta, and Senior Technical Staff and Researcher at modl.ai. Previously, he worked as a Research Support Officer at the Institute of Digital Games and as a Game Designer and UX Specialist in industry.

Dr. Melhart has been deeply involved in the organisation of international events and initiatives in AI and games, including long-standing leadership roles in the International Summer School on Artificial Intelligence and Games, chairing responsibilities at FDG and DiGRA conferences, and contributions to workshops on ethics, transparency, and affective interfaces. He has delivered keynote talks on the ethics of game AI at ECAI and international institutions, and has been invited to speak at industry and academic venues such as CHI Play and Keywords Studios.

His recognitions include the AAAC Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award (Runner-Up), nominations for Best Paper at the IEEE Conference on Games, and awards for scientific video contributions. He has received competitive funding from Xjenza Malta and the Malta Ministry of Education for research on affective annotation and Human-Centred AI systems.

Dr. Melhart serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing and as Editorial Assistant for IEEE Transactions on Games, in addition to reviewing for multiple venues in HCI, games research, and affective computing. He is further active in Dagstuhl seminar series on computational creativity, player experience, and the societal future of games.