Profile

I’m the Dyson Associate Professor in Machine Learning, Official Fellow of Exeter College and Faculty Member of the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance, all at the University of Oxford. I co-lead the Machine Learning Research Group, a sub-group of the Robotics Research Group in the Department of Engineering Science. My full CV is available.

My news is available on Twitter; older news is available for 2013-2014.

Research Expertise

My goal is to develop machine intelligence in sympathy with societal needs. Within machine learning, I have particular expertise in Gaussian processes, active learning, Bayesian optimisation and Bayesian quadrature, and I am a co-founder of the emerging field of probabilistic numerics.

My work in non-parametric data analytics has been successfully applied in diverse and challenging contexts. These contexts range from astrostatistics, where my probabilistic algorithms have aided the detection of planets in distant solar systems, to zoology, where my work has helped to clarify how pigeons are able to navigate such extraordinary distances.

More details are available in my publications.

Impact on Industry and Policy

My career has been shaped by extensive engagement with industry, both in research and consultancy arrangements. Most recently, I have addressed the broader societal consequences of machine learning and robotics. In particular, I have worked to analyse how intelligent algorithms might soon substitute for human workers, and to predict the resulting impact on employment. This latter work has enjoyed broad and sustained media coverage (featured in BBC Newsnight, the Economist, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Independent, the Guardian and the New York Times) and has substantial policy implications related to the future of employment.

Contact

Room 20.05a, Information Engineering Building
Department of Engineering Science
University of Oxford
Parks Road
Oxford
OX1 3PJ
United Kingdom

About this site

This site was built using Hyde, a theme for Jekyll, along with Jekyll Scholar and liberal borrowing from Jan-Willem van de Meent’s excellent site. The colours are drawn from base16, and the fonts are JAF Facit and Edita. The site was written in Sublime Text.