Welcome to my home page!
News: I am chairing a workshop on Artificial Life and the Web at the ALIFE-14 conference in New York, 30 Jul-2 Aug 2014.
News: In March 2014 I am taking up a new position as a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
I work in the fields of artificial intelligence, artificial life and computer science. Currently, my life is split between London and Edinburgh.
In London, I work in the Department of Computing at Goldsmiths, University of London. My role there is Deputy Course Director of the University of London's International Programmes in Computing (where we currently offer degrees in CIS and Creative Computing). We have over 1100 students across the world studying for our degrees, and my role involves both supporting our current students and affiliate institutions, and also developing new offerings and new markets.
In Edinburgh, I am currently developing some research and commercialisation ideas, and learning some new technical skills.
From May 2005 until late 2009, I was Chief Technical Officer, and co-founder, of Timberpost Ltd, a company developing Artificial Intelligence-based software for fund management. We worked closely with a number of large banks and financial firms in London, Europe and the USA.
I spent most of the ten years before that doing academic research in artificial intelligence and artificial life. I have strong interests in biologically-inspired systems, and my PhD was in the evolution of self-replicating software agents.
From January 2002 until May 2005, I was a Research Fellow in School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Within the school, I spent most of that time in the Mobile Robotics Research group of the Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour, working on the Hydra project, which was an EU-funded effort to develop radically new, biologically-inspired technologies for building robust, reconfigurable and self-repairing robots. During the last six months there I moved to the Institute for Communicating and Collaborative Systems (ICCS), to work on the EC-funded JAST (Joint Action Science and Technology) Project. This involved programming an experimental platform involving eye trackers and a virtual environment (user documentation for my software is available here, and system documentation here).
I have also held research positions at IC-CAVE, University of Abertay Dundee (a computer games research group), and at MathEngine PLC, Oxford (a physics engine middleware supplier for games companies), and commercial positions at Quantec Investment Technology in London, and IBM United Kingdom headquarters in Portsmouth, as well as working as a freelance programmer and web developer.
I hold an MA in Natural Sciences (specialising in Experimental Psychology) from Cambridge University, and an MSc (with distinction) and PhD in Artificial Intelligence from Edinburgh University.
Other things that keep me occupied include:
- I am a board member of the International Society for Artificial Life.
- I am an examiner for the University of London International Programmes BSc and Diploma courses in Computing and Information Systems and Creative Computing.
- I am an occasional reviewer for the following journals: Adaptive Behavior, Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Life, BioSystems, Connection Science, Ecological Informatics, Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics
- I am (was/will be) a member of the programme committee for the following conferences:
- International Conference on Artificial Life: ALIFE 14 (2014), ALIFE 13 (2012), ALIFE 12 (2010), ALIFE 11 (2008), ALIFE 10 (2006), ALIFE 9 (2004), ALIFE 8 (2002), ALIFE 7 (2000)
- Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference: GECCO 2014, GECCO 2013, GECCO 2012, GECCO 2011, GECCO 2010, GECCO 2009, GECCO 2008, GECCO 2007, GECCO 2006, GECCO 2005
- European Conference on Artificial Life: ECAL 2013, ECAL 2011, ECAL 2007, ECAL 2005
- International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior: SAB2014, SAB2012, SAB2010, SAB'08, SAB'06, SAB'04, SAB'02
- IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation: IEEE CEC 2011, IEEE CEC 2010, IEEE CEC 2009
- IEEE Symposium on Artificial Life: IEEE ALIFE 2011, IEEE ALIFE 2009
- Other conferences: Bionetics 2011, Bio-ADIT2006, Bio-ADIT2004, evoMUSART2004, Workshop on Morphologies, Motion and Cognition
- I co-organised a track on open-ended evolution at the Eleventh International Conference on Artificial Life (Winchester, UK, 2008).
- I organised a workshop on the Co-evolution of Brains and Bodies at the Seventh International Conference on Artificial Life (Portland, Oregon, 2000).
- I developed (in late 2012) and maintain (ongoing) the new website for the International Society for Artificial Life.
- I am an occasional reviewer of proposals for various national and international scientific grant awarding bodies.
- I set up the Artificial Life Research Programme in the University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics, with the purpose of promoting interaction between researchers within the School (and anyone else in the Edinburgh area) interested in artificial life.
Here's a handy map of the rest of this site: