Full Professor of Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2023-present. 

Founding Director of the Drone Systems Laboratory https://dronesystemslab.co.uk/

Research interests include smart sensing and imaging for autonomous vehicles in land, sea, and air use cases (aligned with mobility, energy, food, and climate themes).

Line manager of 10 person research team and Director of Studies (primary supervisor) for 4 PhD students.

Previously delivered 20+ research projects (PI/FI in project portfolio worth €60 million), recipient of 3 national innovation awards, and output c. 60 peer reviewed articles, including 2 patents. Some recent projects include:

• Principal Investigator of Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) project FLORA-Sage, 2024-27, £749,743.
• Principal Investigator, €5 million H2020 project RAPID (Risk Aware Port Inspection Drones), 2020-23.
• Co-Principal Investigator, £21 million UKRI "Strength in Places", Digitalisation of dairy value chains”, 2021-26,
• Co-Principal Investigator, €1.8 million ERA-Net project RoboVaaS, 2017-21.

Programme Leader of MSc Advanced Drone Technology https://www.uws.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/postgraduate-course-search/advanced-drone-technology/

REF Lead for People, Culture and Environment (PCE), UOA 11 (Computer Science).

Engagements:

• Visiting Professor, University of Limerick (Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering), 2021-present.
• Independent External Expert, European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
• UWS representative to Scottish Research Partnership in Engineering (Robotics and Autonomous Systems).
• Member of Expert Advisory Board of H2020 projects Drones4Safety, 5D-Aerosafe, and Labyrinth.
• Expert Advisory Board, Amsterdam Drone Week 2024.
• Reviewer for the European Commission, Irish Research Council, and Cyprus Research Council.
• Multiple international PhD external examiner roles (e.g., Aarhus University, Denmark).
• Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy, since 2018.

Autonomous Intelligent Vehicles; Sensor Perception; Deep Learning Artificial Intelligence; Digital Twins; Remote Sensing Techniques; Maritime and Aviation Technology; Underwater Acoustics; Virtual and Mixed Reality Systems; High Performance Modelling & Simulation; Scientific Programming; Geospatial Science; Data Visualisation; Video Game Engines; Fast and Memory Efficient Point Cloud & Mesh Processing; Reinforcement Learning; Project Management;