Deborah Richards is a professor in the Department of Computing at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Her current research focus is on the use of intelligent virtual agents to improve the lives of humans, particularly through empowering applications in education, training, health and wellbeing that assist decision-making and behaviour change. She gained almost 20 years ICT industry experience before joining academia, following completion of her PhD AI in 1999 at the University of New South Wales, in knowledge-based systems, knowledge acquisition and reuse.