We are happy to announce that Dr Arshad Jhumka, Dr Gihan Mudalige and Dr Victor Sanchez have been promoted to Reader, effective from 1 August 2021. Quoting from Victor's recommendation,

Dr Sanchez has brought in significant research funding as PI, and as CoI was key to the successful completion of the large IDENTITY project. The size and quality of Dr Sanchez’s research group is impressive, as well as his leadership in joint supervision with colleagues. ... Dr Sanchez is one of the most effective teachers in the department. Every module he has been responsible for has been successful, including in recent years our flagship Machine Learning popular option for 3rd-year undergraduates. Several times, Dr Sanchez has designed or completely redesigned modules, resulting in evidenced student satisfaction.

from Gihan's recommendation,

The career of Dr Gihan Mudalige in the department has been steadily and rapidly progressing upwards since his appointment as Assistant Professor in 2016, marked by such milestones as obtaining a Royal Society Industry Fellowship and being promoted to Associate Professor in 2018, shortly followed by the award of a £1.8M EPSRC-Rolls Royce grant, and taking up the leadership of the department’s high-performance computing research in 2020. ... Dr Mudalige has contributed considerably to the life of the department through his membership and leadership of the Computer Systems Engineering course committee, as well as having been responsible for internships and intercalated years.

and from the recommendation for Arshad,

The high regard of Dr Jhumka’s work by the international research community is clear from his best paper awards, editorial roles, invited talks, and wide network of collaborators. In the department, Dr Jhumka has been a leader in successfully bridging fundamental and applied research. His expertise has been recognized by a range of industrial and government partners, leading to several grants including the current substantial EPSRC PETRAS project. ... Dr Jhumka has introduced a number of practices into his teaching (such as an approach to coursework assignments by group work) that have been popular with students as well as subsequently adopted by other colleagues.

it remains to say many congratulations!

We are delighted to report that Dr Greg Watson and Dr Lin Gui have been promoted to, respectively, Senior Teaching Fellow and Senior Research Fellow, effective from 1 August 2021. Quoting from their recommendations,

What particularly stands out ... is the virtuous circle of (1) Dr Watson’s continual striving for advancing his teaching expertise, evidenced by the extensive courses he has both attended and contributed to, (2) the strong two-way links between Dr Watson’s development and his teaching practice (and that of his peers), evidenced by the various different changes and improvements that he introduced in the classroom based on his scholarly educational investigations, and (3) the consistent very positive feedback from different groups of students as well as colleagues.

and

Dr Lin Gui is one of the most successful postdoctoral researchers in the recent history of the Department, and is continuing his research career with us after a prestigious two-year Marie Curie fellowship. He has been building a solid and high-flying international reputation, underpinned by an impressive trajectory of high-quality publications. Dr Gui’s initiative and emerging independence are in particular reflected in his contributions to substantial successful funding proposals.

it remains to say many congratulations!

Professor Edmund Rolls is pleased to announce the publication of his 15th book "Brain Computations: What and How" by Oxford University Press.

The aim of this book is to elucidate what is computed in different brain systems; and to describe current computational approaches and models of how each of these brain systems computes. Understanding the brain in this way has enormous potential for understanding ourselves better in health and in disease. Potential applications of this understanding are to the treatment of the brain in disease; and to artificial intelligence which will benefit from knowledge of how the brain performs many of its extraordinarily impressive functions.

This book is pioneering in taking this approach to brain function: to consider what is computed by many of our brain systems; and how it is computed. Details can be found here. Professor Rolls notes that the research described in this book has high impact in terms of citations (see here for more information).