Royal Society Research Grant awarded!
I have been awarded a 20,000£ research grant. The work will mix AI and robotics to design new types of artificial life.
Life appeared on planet Earth around 4 billion of years ago, during a process known as abiogenesis or the Origin of Life. My research studies how did this happen, and aims to apply some of those processes into the design of bio-inspired robots. If we know that life happened already at least once, why cannot we use that knowledge to create artifial life? You can read more about this on the Research page.
About me
I am a Robotics Lecturer at the Glasgow Caledonian University, working in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. My current research aims to create generative models of prebiotic processes, and then use artificial evolution to emulate in silico the Origin of Life. Before this I was part of the Cronin Group, first as a PhD and then as a postdoc, where I built robots to emulate the Origin of Life in real-world experiments.
More broadly, I enjoy building autonomous systems that *do* things, and I enjoy working in the intersection between AI, Computer Vision and 3D-printing. If you want to know more about me you can read my CV.
Recent posts
Starting as Lecturer in Glasgow Caledonian University
Today I joined Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) to start a lecturership in Robotics.
Second ‘paper’ published in Nature!
I have published a second opinion piece in Nature. As before, not exactly about science, but about the our careers in science.
First ‘paper’ published in Nature!
After many rejections I have finally published a ‘paper’ in Nature. Although it is not exactly a scientific paper, but an opinion piece about science.
New paper: ChemSCAD
3D-printing has been one of the main technologies used in my research. I usually use it to prototype robots that would automate a process, like an experiment.