I am a computer scientist with research specialization in robotics and machine learning.

Within the University of Edinburgh, I play a leadership role as the Director of the Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour in the School of Informatics, and as an Executive Committee member for the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics. As the Principal Investigator for the UKRI Research Node on Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Governance and Regulation, I lead multi-university activities at the national level.

With members of the Robust Autonomy and Decisions group and collaborators, my research is focussed on learning, adaptation and control mechanisms to enable autonomous robots to cope with the uncertain and the unknown, and for them to be effective in human-AI teams. In turn, this leads us to basic scientific questions about compositional and multi-scale modelling, combination of reasoning with learning and the cognitive aspects of active perception and interaction. 

At Five, I helped build and direct an engineering organisation focussed on the technology stack for autonomous driving. Through this work, our research ideas have been deployed and demonstrated on public roads in London as part of the StreetWise trials, and incorporated into an integrated platform for autonomous vehicle development and safety assurance.

I teach courses in robotics and machine learning, and take part actively in science communication and public engagement. I believe we can only achieve the challenging goals of inclusive growth and well-being for all by fostering broad social participation in the scientific enterprise. This requires us to excite the imagination of the next generation.