Edinburgh Leadership

Michael Rovatsos

Turing Academic Liaison, Edinburgh

As Turing Academic Liaison, Michael is the main link between the University and the Turing Institute on matters relating to research policy and associated strategy.  He is also responsible for strengthening Turing activities within Edinburgh through encouraging engagement of staff with Turing.

Michael is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the School of Informatics, Deputy Vice Principal of Research, and Director of the Bayes Centre at the University of Edinburgh. His academic research interests are mainly in multiagent systems, i.e. systems where either artificial or human agents collaborate or compete with each other. In recent years, much of his work has focused on ethical aspects of AI, primarily through the development of methods for designing fair and diversity-aware AI algorithms and architectures that adapt to the values of human users. Michael has authored around 100 scientific articles on various topics in AI, and has been involved in research projects that have received around £17 million of external funding.

Michael Rovatsos’ contact page

Emma Fyvie-Harper

Turing Liaison, Edinburgh

As Turing Liaison, Emma is the main administrative and operational link between the University and the Alan Turing Institute.  Via her role as Bayes Centre Research Development Officer, Emma coordinates all Turing related research opportunities and the Edinburgh programme of events and communications – providing the main interface between Turing, the Edinburgh Research Office, our Schools and academic colleagues.  Emma is also focussed on strengthening the relationship between our Edinburgh (and Data-Driven Innovation programme) academic and research strategy with the aims and range of opportunities provided by the Turing Institute.

Sethu Vijayakumar

Programme co-Director for Artificial Intelligence at The Alan Turing Institute

Sethu is Programme co-Director for Artificial Intelligence at The Alan Turing Institute, with responsibility for defining and driving the institute's Robotics and Autonomous Systems agenda.

He is the Professor of Robotics at the University of Edinburgh, UK and the Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics. He holds the prestigious Senior Research Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering, co-funded by Microsoft Research and is also an Adjunct Faculty of the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles. He has pioneered the use of large scale machine learning techniques in the real-time control of several iconic robotic platforms such as the SARCOS and the HONDA ASIMO humanoids, KUKA-LWR robot arm and iLIMB prosthetic hand. His latest project (2016) involves a collaboration with NASA Johnson Space Centre on the Valkyrie humanoid robot being prepared for unmanned robotic pre-deployment missions to Mars. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a judge on BBC Robot Wars and winner of the 2015 Tam Dalyell Prize for excellence in engaging the public with science.

Sethu Vijayakumar's contact page

 

Lukasz Szpruch

Programme Director for Finance and Economics, and Turing Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute

Lukasz is Programme Director for Finance and Economics and Turing Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute.  Lukasz is a Reader (Associate Professor) at the School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh. Before moving to Edinburgh, he was a Nomura Junior Research Fellow at the Institute of Mathematics, University of Oxford, and a member of the Oxford-Man Institute for Quantitative Finance.

Lukasz has a broad research interest in probability theory, mean-field models, stochastic control, statistics and quantitative finance. He is also pursuing research on deep neural networks and reinforcement learning. He has run projects jointly with the financial services industry on topics such as model calibration or risk computation. Apart from finance, he is also working on problems that arise in cyber security, energy markets and insurance.

Lukasz Szpruch's contact page 

 

Richard Kenway

Alan Turing Institute Trustees

Vice-Principal Professor Richard Kenway OBE FRSE FInstP FLSW CPhys DPhil BSc, University of Edinburgh

Professor Kenway was appointed to the Tait Chair of Mathematical Physics at the University of Edinburgh in 1994. His research explores the connections between quantum field theory and machine learning. As Vice-Principal, Professor Kenway is responsible for promoting advanced computing, artificial intelligence and data science technologies to benefit society and the economy. In the Queen’s 2008 Birthday Honours, Professor Kenway was awarded an OBE for services to science. He is the Senior Independent Member of the Science & Technology Facilities Council.

Richard Kenway's contact page

The Alan Turing Institute Leadership page

 

Ewa Luger

University of Edinburgh representative on the Turing University Partnerships Board

Professor Ewa Luger holds a personal chair in Human-Data Interaction, is Director of Research Innovation for Edinburgh College of Art and Co-Director of the Institute of Design Informatics. She is also Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute. In research terms, her work explores applied ethical issues and intelligibility of complex data-driven systems, with a particular interest in distribution of power, spheres of exclusion and consent. She is also recipient of University Chancellor’s Award (2020) for ‘Rising Star’ in research and impact.

Ewa is a member of the Leadership Circle for the Scottish Government’s AI Alliance delivering the AI strategy for Scotland. She also sits on Facebook’s Algorithms and Public Interest expert advisory group and the Programme Advisory Board (PAB) for EPSRC’s Digital Economy theme. Ewa worked with the WEF on human-centred inclusion policy and the expert taskforce on trusted data intermediaries. She has also co-led development of UoE’s first Data Ethics and Responsible Innovation MOOC through Bayes (2019), now hosted by EFI.

Ewa Luger's contact page