Advisory Board

The Advisory Committee (AC) advises the Centre on high-level issues related to science, innovation and technology transfer. The AC is appointed by the Board of Directors. The AC consists of international renowned experts and contributes expertise in research, innovation and smart specialisation areas related to the underpinning philosophy of RISE. The AC significantly contributes to the Centre’s scientific progress, shape its research and innovation strategy, and help with international networking and visibility.

The Members of the Advisory Board

Anthony G Cohn

Advisory Board Member

Professor of Automated Reasoning

University of Leeds, Vision and Robotics

Anthony G Cohn

Position: Advisory Board Member

Profession: Professor of Automated Reasoning

Company: University of Leeds, Vision and Robotics

Anthony Cohn is Editor-in-Chief Spatial Cognition and Computation. He is the Chairman/ President of the UK AI Society SSAISB, the European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI), KR inc, the IJCAI Board of Trustees. He currently chairs the Steering Committee of the Spatial Cognition conference. He remains a Director of KR Inc. He is the recipient of the 2015 IJCAI Donald E Walker Distinguished Service Award which honours senior scientists in AI for contributions and service to the field during their careers, as well as the 2012 AAAI Distinguished Service Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of AAAI, AISB, EurAI (Founding Fellow), the BCS, and the IET.

Cengiz A Tarhan

Advisory Board Member

BA RTTP

O2h Ventures, University of Tartu Ventures, Conception X

Cengiz A Tarhan

Position: Advisory Board Member

Profession: BA RTTP

Company: O2h Ventures, University of Tartu Ventures, Conception X

Over the years he has been involved in numerous licenses and spin outs including PolyMASC Pharmaceuticals PLC, one of the first university spin outs to float on the London AIM in 1995. Medic to Medic Ltd (creators of the Map of Medicine) founded in 2000 which was sold to Informa PLC in 2005 and Stanmore Implants Worldwide Limited which was acquired by Abingworth and MDY Healthcare in February 2008. In 2016, Cengiz led the creation of two unique university investment funds to operate alongside UCLB – the £50m UCL Technology Fund and the £40m Apollo Therapeutics collaboration.

Under his leadership UCLB grew to become one of the most successful and prolific university technology commercialisation companies in the UK. In the year he retired UCLB employed a team of 50 people, recorded a turnover of £25m, and three of its spin outs secured NASDAQ listings.

After retirement from UCLB, Cengiz established Tarhan Associates Limited (https://www.tarhanassociates.com/) to provide technology transfer and commercialisation advice to universities in the UK and internationally, He also set up AT8 Capital Partners LLP through which he and his partners provide support, advice and invest in new Start-up companies.

He has served as international mentor for WIPO for three years and carried out various projects including consulting for the Wellcome Trust and LifeArc and numerous universities.

He is currently on the investment advisory boards of O2h Ventures, University of Tartu Ventures and a board director of Conception X

Dieter W. Fellner

Advisory Board Chair

Director

Fraunhofer-Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung IGD

Dieter W. Fellner

Position: Advisory Board Chair

Profession: Director

Company: Fraunhofer-Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung IGD

Dieter W. Fellner is Professor of Computer Science at TU Darmstadt, Germany, and Director of Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD, also in Darmstadt. He is CEO of Fraunhofer Austria Research GmbH and holds a professorship at Graz University of Technology (Austria). Since 2016, he has been chairman of Fraunhofer Information and Communication Technology Group (IUK-Verbund) and a member of the Fraunhofer Presidential Council. Since 2017, he has been a member of the board of Fraunhofer Singapore.

Mel Slater

Advisory Board Member

Department of Computer Science

Malet Place Engineering Building University College London

Mel Slater

Position: Advisory Board Member

Profession: Department of Computer Science

Company: Malet Place Engineering Building University College London

Mel Slater is Distinguished Investigator at the University of Barcelona, Spain, where he leads the Event Lab. He was formerly full Professor in the Computer Science Department at University College London. He has a particular interest in virtual reality for the creation of social scenarios, and also in using the power of virtual reality for changing the self, research that is focused on the interface between computer science and neuroscience.

Nadia Magnenat Thalmann

Advisory Board Member

Founder and Director

MIRALab, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Nadia Magnenat Thalmann

Position: Advisory Board Member

Profession: Founder and Director

Company: MIRALab, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Visiting Professor, School of Computer Science and Engineering at NTU Singapore Nadia Magnenat Thalmann has pioneered research into virtual humans over the last 30 years. She founded the interdisciplinary research group MIRALab at the University of Geneva. Her global domain of research is Virtual Humans and Social Robots. Besides directing her research group MIRALab in Switzerland, she is presently Visiting Professor and Director of the Institute for Media Innovation (IMI) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Nicolai Petkov

Advisory Board Member

Professor, Head of the research group Intelligent Systems, Faculty of Science and Engineering

University of Groningen, Netherlands

Nicolai Petkov

Position: Advisory Board Member

Profession: Professor, Head of the research group Intelligent Systems, Faculty of Science and Engineering

Company: University of Groningen, Netherlands

Nicolai Petkov is professor of Intelligent Systems and Computer Science at the University of Groningen, with contributions in the fields of brain-inspired computing, pattern recognition, applied machine learning and parallel computing. His recent research interests are in applying machine learning to predictive analytics for financial time series.

Oded Cohn

Advisory Board Member

Oded Cohn

Position: Advisory Board Member

Oded Cohn served as IBM Vice President and as the Director of the IBM Research Lab in Haifa, Israel for over 16 years. Oded is responsible for a highly accomplished IT research lab that employs many talented individuals. His responsibilities cover the strategy, research directions, focus, and advancement of the research carried out by the lab workforce.

Yvonne Rogers

Advisory Board Member

Professor and Director of UCLIC

University College London

Yvonne Rogers

Position: Advisory Board Member

Profession: Professor and Director of UCLIC

Company: University College London

Yvonne Rogers is a Professor of Interaction Design, the director of UCLIC and a deputy head of the Computer Science department at UCL. Her research interests are in the areas of ubiquitous computing, interaction design and human- computer interaction.