Honorary appointments

Professor Barry Brown

Barry Brown is a professor at Stockholm University, where he helps to run the STIR research group. His two most recent books have been published by Sage and MIT Press, focusing on how to research the use of digital technology, and the study and design of leisure technologies. Barry previously worked as the research director of the Mobile Life research centre (2011-2017), and as an associate professor in the Department of Communication at UCSD (2007-2011). He has published over 100 papers in human computer interaction and social science forums, along with five ACM best paper nominations (CHI, CSCW, Ubicomp), one ACM best paper award (CHI) and a recent 10-year impact award from the Ubicomp conference. In terms of research funding he has received over $8 million (75 million SEK) in research funding from the UK research councils, NSF, and European and Swedish Funding agencies. His research has also been covered in the international press including the Guardian, Time, New York Times, Sydney Morning Herald, Voice of America and Fortune Magazine.

Professor Humberto Bustince

Humberto Bustince Sola is a full professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the Public University of Navarra. He is the main researcher of the Research Group on Artificial Intelligence and Approximate Reasoning, whose research lines are both theoretical (data fusion functions, information and comparison measures, fuzzy sets and their extensions) and applied (Deep learning, image processing, classification, machine learning, data mining, big data or the computational brain). He has led more than 15 research projects funded by national and regional governments, and two excellence networks on soft computing. He has been the main researcher in projects with companies and entities such as Caja de Ahorros de Navarra, INCITA, Gamesa Tracasa or the Servicio Navarro de Salud. He has taken part in two international projects.  He has authored or coauthored more than 300 works, according to Web of Science, including around 120 in Q1 journals. He was a highly cited researcher among the top 1%most relevant scientists in the world in 2018, according to Clarivate Analytics.  He collaborates with first line research groups from countries such as United Kingdom, Belgium, Australia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Canada or Brazil. He is editor in chief of the Mathware&Soft Computing online magazine of the European Society of Fuzzy Logic and technologies and of the Axioms journal. Associated editor of the IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems journal and member of the editorial boards of the journals Fuzzy Sets and Systems, Information Fusion, International Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems and Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems. Moreover, he is a coauthor of a book about averaging functions, and has been the co-editor of several books. He has been in charge of organising several first level international conferences such as EUROFUSE 2009 and AGOP 2013. He is Senior Member of  IEEE y Fellow of the International Fuzzy Systems Association (IFSA). Member of the Basque Academy of Sciences, Arts and Literature, Jakiunde, since 2018. He has advised 11 Ph.D thesis. He was awarded the Cross of Carlos III the Noble by The Government of Navarra in 2017. He got the National Computer Science Prize José García Santesmases in 2019 and the Scientific Excellence Award of EUSFLAT the same year.

Professor James Keller

James M. Keller is the Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Missouri, and an honorary professor at the University of Nottingham. His research interests center on computational intelligence: fuzzy set theory and fuzzy logic, neural networks, and evolutionary computation with a focus on problems in computer vision, pattern recognition, and information fusion including bioinformatics, spatial reasoning in robotics, geospatial intelligence, sensor and information analysis in technology for eldercare, and land mine detection. His industrial and government funding sources include the Electronics and Space Corporation, Union Electric, Geo-Centers, National Science Foundation, the Administration on Aging, the National Institutes of Health, NASA/JSC, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, the Leonard Wood Institute, and the Army Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate. He has coauthored over 500 technical publications.

Jim is a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of the International Fuzzy Systems Association (IFSA) and a past President of the North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society (NAFIPS). He received the 2007 Fuzzy Systems Pioneer Award and the 2010 Meritorious Service Award from the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS). He won the 2021 IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Technical Field Award. He has been a distinguished lecturer for the IEEE CIS and the ACM. Keller finished a full six-year term as editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, followed by being the vice president for publications of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society from 2005-2008, then as an elected CIS Adcom member and is in another term as vice president for publications (2017-2020).

Jim joined IMA and LUCID as an honorary professor, contributing his extensive expertise on computational intelligence with applications ranging from robotics to elder care.

Professor Brian Kernighan

Brian Kernighan is a professor in the Computer Science Department at Princeton.

He is a co-creator of several programming languages, including AWK and AMPL, and of a number of tools for document preparation, and the author of more than a dozen books.  He is a member the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  His most recent book, "Unix: A History and a Memoir", was published in 2019.

His research areas include programming languages, tools and interfaces that make computers easier to use, often for non-specialist users.  His work in document preparation systems has involved collaboration with colleagues at Nottingham for nearly 40 years.

Dr Tie-Yan Liu

Tie-Yan Liu (刘铁岩) is an assistant managing director of Microsoft Research Asia, leading the machine learning research area. He is a fellow of the IEEE and a distinguished member of the ACM. He is an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Tsinghua University (THU), Nankai University, and University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), and an honorary professor at the University of Nottingham.

Many of his technologies have been transferred to Microsoft’s products and online services, such as Bing, Microsoft Advertising, Windows, Xbox, and Azure.  He has also actively contributed to the academic community. His seminal contribution to the field of learning to rank has been widely recognised (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_to_rank). He invented several highly impactful algorithms and theories, including the listwise approach to ranking, relational ranking, and statistical learning theory for ranking. His wider research includes work on scalable and efficient machine learning, deep learning and reinforcement learning, and algorithmic game theory. 

Professor Linlin (Dylan) SHEN

Linlin (Dylan) SHEN received the BSc and MEng degrees from Shanghai JiaoTong University, Shanghai, China, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK. He was a Research Fellow with the University of Nottingham, working on MRI brain image processing. Prof. Shen is currently the “Pengcheng Scholar” Distinguished Professor at School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China. He is also an Honorary professor at School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, UK. He serves as the director of Computer Vision Institute, AI Research Center for Medical Image Analysis and Diagnosis and China-UK joint research lab for visual information processing. He also serves as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the IET journal of Cognitive Computation and Systems.

He is listed as the Most Cited Chinese Researchers by Elsevier, and listed in a ranking of the top 2% of scientists in the world by Stanford University. He received the Most Cited Paper Award from the journal of Image and Vision Computing. His cell classification algorithms were the winners of the International Contest on Pattern Recognition Techniques for Indirect Immunofluorescence Images held by ICIP 2013 and ICPR 2016.

Professor Steve Simske

Steve Simske is a Professor of Systems Engineering at Colorado State University. Steve was at HP from 1994-2018, and was an HP Fellow, Vice President, and Director in HP Labs. He is the author of more than 450 publications and more than 200 US patents. He is an IS&T Fellow, and its immediate past President (2017-2019). Steve is the Steering Committee Chair for the ACM DocEng Symposium, which meets annually and benefits from University of Nottingham CS Professors Brailsford and Bagley being active leaders. Dr. Simske was a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Councils from 2010-2016, including Illicit Trade, Illicit Economy and the Future of Electronics. In his 20+ years in industry, Steve directed teams in research on 3D printing, education, life sciences, sensing, authentication, packaging, analytics, imaging and manufacturing. His books “Meta-Algorithmics,” “Meta-Analytics,” and “Functional Applications of Text Analytics Systems” bring Computer Science patterns and principles to address intelligent (AI/ML) systems. At CSU, he has a cadre of on-campus students in Systems, Mechanical, and Biomedical Engineering, along with a larger contingent of on-line/remote graduate students researching in a wide variety of disciplines.

Professor Eugene H. Spafford

Eugene H. Spafford is one of the most senior academics in the field of cybersecurity. During his 44 years in computing, including 35 years as a faculty member at Purdue University, Spaf (as he is widely known) has worked on issues in privacy, public policy, law enforcement, software engineering, education, social networks, operating systems, and cyber security. He has been involved in the development of fundamental technologies in intrusion detection, incident response, firewalls, integrity management, and forensic investigation. His interests range over these and many other areas, and this has been one of the factors behind his leadership of CERIAS, the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, where he is the Executive Director Emeritus.

Spaf has served as a senior advisor to US and International agencies, companies, and organizations. This has included advising corporate boards, consulting in judicial actions, and serving on study commissions. He has worked extensively with the US Air Force, the US Naval Academy, FBI, and DOE National Labs, the National Science Foundation, the ACM, Microsoft, Intel, Unisys, and the Computing Research Association — among others.Dr Spafford is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association for the Advancement of Science, the ACM, the IEEE, and the (ISC)²; a Distinguished Fellow of the ISSA; and a member of the Cyber Security Hall of Fame, the only person to ever hold all these distinctions. In 2012 he was named as one of Purdue's inaugural Morrill Professors, the university's highest award for the combination of scholarship, teaching, and service. In 2016, he received the State of Indiana's highest civilian honour by being named as a Sagamore of the Wabash.

Among many other activities, he is chair of ACM Publications Ethics & Plagiarism Committee and is editor-in-chief of the journal Computers & Security.  More information may be found here. 

Spaf became an Honorary Professor with the University of Nottingham in 2022, and is linked to the CybSec research group, where he is involved in collaborative activities and engagement with the research team and its students.

Professor Kay Chen Tan

Kay Chen Tan is currently a Chair Professor (Computational Intelligence) of the Department of Computing, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He has co-authored 7 books and published over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles. Prof. Tan holds one U.S. patent on surface defect detection, and another one is pending approval.

Prof. Tan is currently the Vice-President (Publications) of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, USA. He has served as the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation from 2015-2020 (IF: 11.169) and IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine from 2010-2013 (IF: 9.083). Prof. Tan currently serves as an Associate Editor of various international journals, such as IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, and IEEE Transactions on Games.

Prof. Tan has been invited as a Plenary/Keynote speaker for over 80 international conferences, including the 2020 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence, the 2016 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence, etc. He has served as an organising committee Chair/Co-Chair for over 50 international conferences, including the General Co-Chair of 2019 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, and the General Co-Chair of 2016 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence, etc.

Prof. Tan has received a number of research awards, such as the 2020 IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics Outstanding Paper Awards, the 2019 IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine Outstanding Paper Awards, the 2016 IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems Outstanding Paper Awards, the 2012 Outstanding Early Career Award presented by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, and the 2008 Recognition Award given by the International Network for Engineering Education & Research.

Prof. Tan is an IEEE Fellow, an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer Program (DLP) speaker since 2012, and an Honorary Professor at University of Nottingham in UK since 2020. Prof. Tan is also the Chief Co-Editor of Springer Book Series on Machine Learning: Foundations, Methodologies, and Applications launched in 2020.

Dr Robert Treloar

Robert Treloar is a senior research scientist within the Digital Research and Development Group at Unilever PLC a large consumer packaged goods company.

After joining Unilever in 1992, initially with a background in theoretical physics, he has spent the last 28 years applying computational methods to a wide range of business challenges. During that time he has benefited from and been challenged by multiple waves of technology innovation, from the emergence of data visualisation and VR and developments, through many incarnations of machine learning and AI with allied developments in sensor science and communications tech to the digitally connected world of today.

Over that time his interests have become very much focused on the intersection of these technologies with the consumer -  from using to understand behaviour and product use in life and building perceptually relevant models of human sensing through digital interaction to the opportunities for consumer facing product technologies.

Robert currently works with the business and external partners on a range of projects at the interface of AI, optimisation, personalisation and digital product technologies.  Some particular interests include learning from data /sensing in uncontrolled environments, hybrid products, exploiting prior knowledge in data poor environments and the explainable AI, trust and privacy agenda, and he leads Unilever’s interaction with the Horizon Digital Economy Institute and associated Doctoral Training Centre.

Professor Michael Twidale

Michael Twidale is a Professor in the School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is the director of the PhD Program. His research interests are at the intersection of computer supported cooperative work, computer supported collaborative learning, human computer interaction, and sociotechnical systems design.

Current projects include studies of informal social learning of technology, ubiquitous learning, the intersection of search, learning and creativity, data quality, designing data for the very long term, museum informatics, and agile research methods. He is interested in how people learn technologies, how they succeed, fail, struggle, tinker, innovate, appropriate, help their friends and try to search for solutions online.

Professor Michel Valstar

Professor Michel Valstar is founding CEO of BlueSkeye AI and an Honorary Professor in Automatic Human Behaviour Understanding in Computer Science at the University of Nottingham.  He is an expert in machine learning, computer vision and facial expression analysis and a  thought leader in affective computing and social signal processing. Over 18 years in this field his work has been published in over 100 peer-reviewed publications, which have been   cited over 17,000 times with an h-index of 51, making him the second most cited person in the field of SSP.  He is the organiser of 9 international conferences on the subject.  His work has received extensive media coverage including  in;  Science Magazine, The Guardian, New Scientist and on BBC Radio and Television.

In 2014 he coined the term Behaviomedics to describe the application of automatic analysis and synthesis of affective and social signals to aid objective diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of medical conditions that alter an individual’s affective and socially expressive behaviour.  In 2019 Professor Valstar founded BlueSkeye AI to commercialise the work of himself and his team.  The company aims to create the most-used technology for ethical machine understanding of face and voice behaviour trusted  to measure the mind through the use of ubiquitously available, affordable technology. 

Professor Valstar received a masters' degree in Electrical Engineering at Delft University of Technology in 2005 and his PhD in computer science at Imperial College London in 2008. In 2011 he was a Visiting Researcher at  the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)'s  Media Lab in 2011. In 2012 he joined the University of Nottingham as an Associate Professor.

Amr Ahmed 

Amr Ahmed has been an Associate Professor and the Head of School of Computer Science in Nottingham Malaysia (2018-2021).

His research interests and expertise are in the area of AI in Computer Vision and Image/Video Analysis, with particular focus on Medical Image/Video Analysis and Health Applications as well as the AgriFood Technology. He has been collaborating (and still leading collaborations) with key partners, such as "Cancer Research Malaysia (CRMY)" and "Crops for Future (CFF)" research centre in Malaysia. He is a member of the "Malaysia AI Consortium" and the "Academy Science Malaysia (ASM)" special interest group in AI and Machine Learning.

Amr has been invited as "Keynote speaker" in a couple of conferences and delivered invited talks and guest lectures at various institutions, including Tsinghua University and the Chinese Academy (Institute of Automation), Bejing, China.  He reviewed grant applications for UK funding bodies, e.g. EPSRC and Leverhulme Trust. He also joined the "Nottingham Research Leaders" program (NRLP) in 2019.

He held several research and academic positions in various other UK universities (including Surrey and Lincoln). He also worked in the industry for several years, including in Sharp Labs of Europe (SLE), Oxford (UK), as a Research Scientist, and other Engineering Consultants companies abroad.

Christian Greiffenhagen

Christian Greiffenhagen is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he leads the Video Analysis, Science & Technology (VAST) Research Group, which develops video-based methodologies to study the impact of scientific and technological developments on people’s lives. His primary research areas in Science & Technology Studies (STS) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Current research projects include “The Practice of Peer Review in Mathematics” (GRF 14600218), which investigates how the organization of peer review in pure mathematics reflects its disciplinary specificity and “Intimacy at a Distance: A Video-based Study of Video Calls between Migrant Workers and their Left-behind Children in China” (GRF 14602619), which studies the role of video calls in facilitating intimacy in multi-local families.

Christian has a long-standing with the School of Computer Science through his links with the Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute and the Mixed-Reality Laboratory. He was a Research Fellow at Horizon in 2012, where he worked on the EPSRC “PAWS: Public Access Wi-Fi Service” project. Subsequently, he was Co-Investigator with Stuart Reeves on the “Behind the Cameras” project, which led to the CHI 2015 paper “I'd Hide You: Performing Live Broadcasting in Public”, which won an Honourable Mention Award. More recently, he again worked with Stuart Reeves on the CHI2020 paper “Connecting Distributed Families: Camera Work for Three-party Mobile Video Calls”, which won a Best Paper Award.

Ali Ismail Awad

Ali Ismail Awad (Ph.D., SMIEEE, MACM) received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan, in 2012. He is currently an Associate Professor at the College of Information Technology, United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. He has been coordinating the Master's Program in Information Security at the same institution since 2022. He is an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. Dr. Awad is also a Visiting Researcher at the University of Plymouth, United Kingdom. He is also an Associate Professor with the Electrical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Al-Azhar University at Qena, Egypt. Dr. Awad was an Associate Professor (Docent) with the Department of Computer Science, Electrical and Space Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden, where he coordinated the Master’s Program in Information Security from 2017 to 2020. In 2021, he was promoted to a Recognized University Teacher rank at LTU for his pedagogical achievements. His research interests include cybersecurity, network security, Internet of Things (IoT) security, and image analysis with biometrics and medical imaging applications. Dr. Awad has edited or co-edited several books and authored or co-authored several journal articles and conference papers in these areas. In 2021, 2022, and 2023, he was listed in the top 2% of influential scientists worldwide. He is an Editorial Board member of Future Generation Computer Systems, Computers & Security, Internet of Things; Engineering Cyber-Physical Human Systems, Health Information Science and Systems, and  Security, Privacy and Authentication section by Frontiers. Dr. Awad is an IEEE Senior Member and an ACM Professional Member.

Andy Cobbett

 Andy is an experienced Chief Information Security Officer, with over 20 years of managing        cyber risk within the Oil & Gas sector and Financial sectors. He is experienced at holding strategic responsibility for cyber security and privacy, as well as leading large complex security transformations across complex organisations. Among his many achievements Andy lead the global programme for a major international energy company to secure industrial process control systems (SCADA) and Operation Technology (OT/IoT) against cyber-attack. The transformation brought together over 400 disparate operational businesse,  created a global Group-wide capability for cyber resilience and influenced a cross-industry response.

Andy brings with him a wide-range of real-world experience and skills, including: corporate security governance; security culture and behavioural change; secure software engineering and development; security operations; and cyber crisis management and incident response. 

Andy is a Director and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Information Security and is a keen advocate of the professionalisation of the UK’s Information and Cyber Security industry.  During his tenure he has held a number of roles within the Institute, including: Chair of the Corporate Representatives Committee; member of the Accreditation Committee; founder and chair of the Chartered Institute’s Social Mobility Network; and representative on the steering board that created the first four National Cyber Apprenticeship Schemes. 

Ying He

Ying He is a Senior Lecturer in Queen Mary University London. Ying’s research is at the interface of Computer Science (cyber  security, health information systems) and Social Science (human decision making).  Main research areas are human decision making, business case  studies, risk assessment, social aspect of cyber security. The main research methodology bases upon both qualitative and quantitative methods including in-depth case studies, large-scale experimental user studies and field studies with security professionals in different industries. Ying has secured several UKRI grants including Innovate UK Projects and the on-going ESRC Project on Cyber Security Investment.

Ying’s research has advanced the knowledge and practical application within the socio-technical cyber security research community, with research impact delivered through closely working with security  professionals. Ying’s research involves collecting new data from industrial partners and deliver impact through implementing the proposed approach in different industries. Ying’s research has broader impact as the research methodology based upon both qualitative and quantitative methods including large-scale  experimental user studies and field studies, which contributes to social science in human decision making.