College of Science & Engineering

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Dr Hanaa Abumarshoud

My research is in the area of visible light communications and LiFi systems – enabling green, high-speed, secure, and reliable connectivity for wireless communications through light! 

Ask me about: the use of LED and laser lights for 5G and beyond. 

I work on developing novel ideas to allow lighting fixtures to act as communication and localisation hubs. I am applying signal processing, optimisation, and machine learning to enable autonomous, intelligent, and reconfigurable LiFi operations. 

Contact me: hanaa.abumarshoud@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr David Anderson

My research focuses on systems simulation and control. Our Micro Autonomous Systems Technology Laboratory (MAST-Lab) specialises in the design and testing of novel drone configurations and advanced control/sensor fusion.

Ask me about: MAVERIC – Multi-Agent Vehicle synthetic Environment using Robust, Intelligent Computing. MAVERIC can be used for a variety of RAS research activities ranging from sensor simulation, operational planning & analysis and providing synthetic data for training ML/AI solutions.

Contact me: dave.anderson@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Shuja Ansari

• 5G/6G mobile networks and connectivity for remote operation of Robotics and Autonomous Systems with focus on healthcare and industry applications
• Security and Privacy of Autonomous Systems

Ask me about: 

• Connectivity for Autonomous Systems 
• Security and Privacy of data within Autonomous Systems
• Internet of Things and Internet of Skills

Contact me: Shuja.ansari@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Gerardo Aragon-Camarasa

My research expertise is in the multidisciplinary areas of robotics, machine learning and machine perception. My research interests are:

• Robotics and AI in Advanced Manufacturing
• Robotic perception and manipulation of deformable objects
• Artificial intelligence for flexible autonomous robotic systems

Ask me about: AI for dual-arm robotic systems. We are currently investigating how to use advanced artificial intelligence to allow robots to learn to recognise objects and understand their body and operating environment. With these capabilities, robots can be programmed to learn to control their actions, respond to events, and work out how to carry out tasks without having every step programmed in advance.

Contact me: gerardo.aragoncamarasa@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Blair Archibald

How do we reason about autonomous systems and their interactions? Are they operating as we expect? What if we change the operating environment, can we robustly predict potential issue?

Ask me about: Applying formal methods, mathematical/logical/computational models, to reason about and robustly prove/verify properties of autonomous systems.

Contact me: Blair.Archibald@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Richard Bowman

I lead the OpenFlexure Project, a 3D printed, automated research microscope with designs and instructions available under an open source license.  Making autonomous microscopy more widely available enables faster, more consistent data acquisition in the life and physical sciences, and in medical diagnostics. The OpenFlexure Microscope can be made with relatively basic tools; ideal for the Global South, where supply chains can be problematic, and repairability is crucial. 

Ask me about: How microscopy can produce more reproducible results when it’s automated.

Contact me: richard.bowman@glasgow.ac.uk

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Professor S. Cochran

I’m interested in the use of ultrasonics in robotics. This includes:

• Robotic manipulation of ultrasound probes for medical applications.
• Design and use of bespoke ultrasound probes for control of robotic motion.
• Miniature power ultrasonics probes that can be more easily manipulated for surgical applications.

Ask me about:

• Ultrasound as a modality with unique properties for sensing and actuation for robotics, particularly in medical applications.

Contact me: sandy.cochran@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Yehia Elkhatib

My main interests in Autonomous Systems is to enable different systems to reason about and actualise composition between themselves to from more complex systems, or Systems of Systems (SoS).

Ask me about:

• Holon: a self-describing system that appears as a whole when viewed from above whilst potentially comprising multiple sub-systems when viewed from below
• Mediation: acting as a bridge between composing systems​

Contact me: yehia.elkhatib@glasgow.ac.uk or visit my website yelkhatib.github.io to find out more.

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Professor David Flynn

I am interested in how cyber physical infrastructure and systems can create shared and assistance based Lifecyle learning for scalable autonomy. This will support fundamental advances in run-time safety compliance, reliability and resilience in autonomous systems.

Ask me about: Scalable autonomy and digitalisation, which includes challenges in self-certification of performance and safety compliance in autonomous systems. As well as symbiotic partnerships between autonomous systems, humans and the environment.

Contact me: David.Flynn@Glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Mary Ellen Foster

I am interested in developing social robots that are able to interact with human partners in real-world situations.

Ask me about:

How people communicate with robots; how robots can understand when people are trying to communicate with them; and the appropriate roles for socially intelligent robots to take in the world.

Contact me: MaryEllen.Foster@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Jonathan Grizou

I’m developing a low-cost self-driving car competition to boost students' interest in programming and AI. My edge is to use a smartphone to drive a toy car to minimise cost and reach more students.

Ask me about: My multiple start-up experiences and previous projects in open source and educational robotics. And did you know I built robots that can automate chemistry?

Contact me: jonathan.grizou@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Tanaya Guha

I develop multimodal machine learning models to improve how autonomous systems (self-driving cars for example) 'see' and 'hear'. This involves understanding both in-car environment and road scenarios. Current projects include multimodal drivers state monitoring and pedestrian trajectory forecasting.

Ask me about:

Video analysis, audio processing, multimodal models, machine learning

Contact me: tanaya.guha@glasgow.ac.uk or visit my webpage www.tanayag.com to find out more.

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Professor Monika Harvey

I am a Professor of Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience and currently lead, (with Professor Vinciarelli), a UKRI funded Centre for Doctoral Training in Social AI (https://socialcdt.org/). I work on pushing forward the development of brain-inspired artificial neural networks. I have a particular interest in using self-supervised AI learning to predict  brain health and brain age.

Ask me about:

• Neural Networks predicting brain age and brain health
• Autonomous vehicles and older adult drivers

Contact me: Monika.Harvey@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Paul Harvey

For three years I co-founded and led research for Rakuten Mobile in Japan on Autonomous Networks. I am interested in how to make different types of networked system achieve autonomy through self-adaptation driven by Darwinian evolution. 

Ask me about: 

• Industrial Research
• Autonomous Networks
• Programmable Systems
• Programmable Networks
• Artificial Evolution
• Digital Network Twins
• Self Adaptation  

Contact me: paul.harvey@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Paul Henderson

I build systems that understand the visual world with minimal human supervision. They automatically learn aspects of its structure such as 3D geometry and decomposition into objects. This allows solving tasks like object detection, segmentation and 3D reconstruction.

Ask me about:

How to train modern deep learning models for computer vision tasks without expensive annotated training data

Contact me: paul.henderson@glasgow.ac.uk

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Professor Muhammad Ali Imran

Connectivity solutions for autonomous robots.

• Ultra reliable and low latency communication for tele-control of robots
• Robots and autonomous vehicles communication with the environment and each other
• Self-learning and system design for autonomous robotics

Ask me about:

Use cases and demonstrated capabilities of communication systems and robotics. Use of connected robotics in Health, Training, Maintenance and Education.

Contact me: muhammad.imran@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Jianglin Lan

I am interested in developing advanced control, optimisation, and machine learning techniques to ensure the safety, resilience, robustness, and functionality of autonomous systems in their real-world use.

Ask me about:

Low-carbon machine learning for autonomous systems.

Contact me: Jianglin.Lan@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr. Emma Liying Li

I am interested in:

• Human-robot interaction for social & health care, industry, service, etc. The goal is to strength human-robot partnerships in industry and society
• Behaviour functioning for human-centred robotic systems
• Privacy protection and cyber security using behaviour biometrical information to enhance trust between humans and robots

Ask me about: the technique challenges to enable seamless human-robot teaming, and to build trust between human and robots 

Contact me: liying.li@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Euan McGookin

I research mobile robotic systems; Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, Gliders, Guided Vehicles, Rovers, Drones, and Uninhabited Surface Vessels - for use in hostile environments. I focus on the design, construction, mathematical modelling, simulation, GNC, biomimetics, health monitoring and fault tolerant systems. I also develop algorithms for the coordination of multi-agent robotic systems and intelligent systems for autonomous process monitoring and test. 

Ask me about: the design and development of biomimetic autonomous underwater vehicles – RoboSalmon and SHARC; Horizon 2020 project BADGER involving an underground drilling robot and UKSA funded work on fault tolerant rover systems for planetary exploration. Also, my robotics consultancy for LEGO.

Contact me: Euan.Mcgookin@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Hessam Mehr

I work at the intersection of chemistry and robotics, with the aim of making autonomous chemical synthesis and discovery a possibility. I am interested in the use of language to describe the robotic transformation of chemicals, and artificial intelligence to reason about the outcome of these transformations.

Ask me about: Programming languages for chemical synthesis. I am involved in the design and implementation of the XDL programming language. Using XDL, chemists can program the steps needed to synthesize a compound for execution on any robot without ambiguity. Plain text procedures commonly found in chemistry publications can also be converted to XDL for automated execution.

Contact me: Hessam.Mehr@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Gethin Norman

My research concerns building and analysing formal models of systems with probabilistic and real-time behaviour. My works spans aspects of probabilistic verification from theory and the development of algorithms to practice. My current focus concerns game-theoretic methods for verification and controller synthesis.

Ask me about: A current project for which I am a senior research fellow. The project aims to develop novel probabilistic verification and synthesis techniques to guarantee safety, robustness and fairness for complex decisions based on machine learning, formulate a modelling framework for reasoning about systems of autonomous agents and their interactions, and evaluate the techniques on a variety of case studies.

Contact me: gethin.norman@glasgow.ac.uk

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Professor Dimitrios Pezaros

I work in autonomous, self-* ICT networks and services, using closed-loop measurement-monitoring-control mechanisms and adaptive resource provisioning for the dynamic dimensioning of the complex ICT infrastructure. This spans the Cloud-to-Edge-to-Things processing continuum, while focusing on the performance and efficiency optimisation of ICT services in environments of high mobility-low energy-low processing capacity, as well as on cybersecurity and network resilience. 

Ask me about: Network programmability and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV); how they can be harnessed to provide fast and flexible service deployment over resource-constrained, autonomous, self-managed networked environments such as unmanned vehicles, Industrial Control Systems, and the IoT. Also, how to provide dynamic cyber-defence mechanisms to enhance the resilience of the ICT infrastructure in the presence of an evolving cyber-threat space.

Contact me: dimitrios.pezaros@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Daniel Salley

My interests are in the design and use of bespoke automated platforms in many areas of chemistry, with a focus on inorganic materials. I have been developing modular architectures for closed-loop experimentation in the hope of discovering new chemical phenomena. 

Ask me about: Our method is to first think of a chemistry project, bench test methods we can use to develop an interesting result and finally implement a custom made platform to perform our experiments. I use existing hardware/software modules to complete the workflow or create new ones under the same architecture and get to work! 

Contact me: Daniel.Salley@glasgow.ac.uk

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Professor Alessandro Vinciarelli

I'm improving the relationship between artificial agents (robots, virtual characters, etc.) and their users through AI driven approaches aimed at developing social intelligence in machines (Social AI). Making robots and other machines capable to understand users’ intentions, moods, attitudes, traits, etc.

Ask me about:

The UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Socially Intelligent Artificial Agents. I am the Centre’s director and I am contributing to train 50 PhD students addressing all aspects of Social AI (http://socialcdt.org)

Contact me: Alessandro.Vinciarelli@Glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Scott Watson

I am interested in using laser sources for optical communication between autonomous vehicles, predominantly looking at autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs).

Ask me about:

High speed data transfer between autonomous vehicles.

I am keen to explore the control mechanisms of autonomous vehicles and how data can be sent between vehicles at high data rates. This opens doors for live video streaming for many security & defence and oil & gas applications. 

Contact me: scott.watson@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Kevin Worrall

My interests cover all elements of the mechatronic design of this type of system (mobile, UAV, or manipulator) from interpreting the sensor inputs, designing the required controllers to providing the mechanical actuation. I am particularly interested in the use of biologically inspired designs along with multi agent control algorithms. I have focused on the creation of autonomous systems for extreme environments (space, underground, or polar regions) and for medical applications.

Ask me about:

• Control and sensing algorithms
• Multi agent algorithms
• Mechatronic design
• Design and testing for extreme environments

Contact me: kevin.worrall@glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Lei Zhang

My research interests include distributed consensus networks, blockchain technology, security and privacy and its applications in autonomous systems, in order to improve the safety, reliability and trustworthiness of connected autonomous agents. 

Ask me about: Based on distributed consensus and the proposed “MSN (mirror-signal-manoeuvre) protocol for autonomous driving”, my team have demonstrated how smart vehicles can synchronise themselves without the support of trusted infrastructure, in a similar way to human drivers. Looking for academics working on robotics, decision making, and machine learning. 

Contact me: Lei.Zhang@Glasgow.ac.uk

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Dr Dezong Zhao

I aim to develop fully autonomous systems and ensure they are interpretable, adaptive, verifiable and compatible. My research covers perception, navigation, control, modelling, inference, learning and computing of a wide spectrum of autonomous systems including autonomous vehicles and robotics.

Ask me about: 

Efficient, safe, trustworthy and causal autonomous systems.

Contact me: dezong.zhao@glasgow.ac.uk

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