Department of CS newsletter

I have heard very positive feedback from a number of sources about what a great event StudentHack 2024 was earlier this month. Many thanks to UniCS for organising and a special thanks to the following who gave up their valuable time over the weekend to help out with things - Duncan Hull, Afroditi Galata, Joe Razavi, Tom Carroll, Chris Anderson, Ruth Maddocks, Riza Batista-Navarro, Soheb Mandhai, Pavlos Petoumenos, Francisco Lobo, Louise Dennis, and Bill Sellers. I know the attendees really appreciated all the support!

Senate News

As you may have heard, we have two additional CS colleagues now on Senate - congratulations to Emily and Riza. And many thanks to Bijan for reminding us all about how important it is that we have good representation on Senate itself.

NLP Interviews

Interviews for the NLP L/SL post are scheduled for April 25th and 29th. We have a strong pool of candidates and I’ll update you all on the outcome once an appointment decision has been made.

Graduation

You may want to make a note in your diaries of the summer graduation date/times. Our ceremonies will be held on Thursday July 18th at 1630 and at 1815. Please sign up here (https://www.enet.uk.net/) to take part in the academic procession. It is always enjoyable to celebrate the successes of our students.

Big Sisters in STEM Podcast

Finally, it was great to hear Zahra Montazeri interviewed on the Big Sisters in STEM podcast last week talking about ‘Role models, unlocking creativity and shedding stereotypes’. It is well worth a listen. The series is available on all the unusual podcasting platforms incl. YouTube - https://youtu.be/aTglnAVpBxY?si=6Gl6kUXWRfxdVl5s

Andrew

This week Professor Sami Kaski gave his inaugural lecture, describing his vision for the future of science and engineering through human-in-the-loop systems driven by Machine Learning.  Sami articulated how  symbiotic relationships between humans and machines might revolutionize traditional practices, fostering innovation and efficiency.   His work describes a future where algorithms augment human capabilities, accelerating discovery and problem-solving across disciplines, integrating research across the entire University.  The attendance was great.

Many thanks to all who came in person and also those who joined online.  A recording will be made available in due course.

Event: 3-4-Jun-2024 (Hyatt Regency Manchester)

Prof. Chenghua Lin has been announced as a speaker at this year's The Advances in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Conference is Manchester’s annual data science and AI conference.

MCS Projects is an organisation that runs challenges days for schools.  They are running three events in the department from June 10th-12th and it would be great if some of our students were helping out and so could talk to the school kids about what life as a student at the University of Manchester was like.  They have several other events across the region and pay helpers £84 per day plus travel expenses.  More details below.

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Would you be interested in some work teaching 12-14 year olds that that are interested in Science and Technology in June and July?

We are looking for students to assist leading activities and answer questions about University at some of our Challenge Days. Each event is a regional competition designed to raise enthusiasm for STEM subjects and encourage more young people to consider a career in them. 

Events run from 8.30-3.15, with activities including E-FIT forensics, medical diagnostics and electric car. For more information please go to mcsprojectsltd.co.uk. 

Successful applicants would be added to a mailing list so they can sign up to any events that they’re available for in the North West. The pay is £84 plus travel expenses per event. A training session would be provided beforehand.

To apply send a C.V to john.waterworth@mcsprojectsltd.co.uk by Monday 6th May

Professor Tony Belpaeme (Ghent University), a leading international expert in social robots, will visit our department on April 24-25.

He will give a talk (linked to my Cognitive Robotics Unit) on Thursday 25 April, 12 noon, at Simon Theatre B.

TITLE

Future Teachers Are Wired Differently: Social Robots in Education

ABSTRACT

The study of Human-Robot Interaction focuses on how people interact with robots and how to build technology that meets the stringent expectations we pose on natural interaction between people and robots. In the past decade social robots coming out of this research have been used in a range of applications, includes healthcare, services, and entertainment. One very promising application area of social robotics is education. In this, robots are used to take over educational tasks from teachers. The first part of the talk will present results that illustrate the potential of robots as educators, while the second part of the talk focuses on the technical challenges faced when building autonomous social robots and how new breakthroughs in AI, specifically in Large Language Models and other Transformer based models, offer the potential to lift social autonomy to new levels.

BIOGRAPHY

Tony Belpaeme is Professor at Ghent University and Senior Researcher at imec. His research interests include Human-Robot Interaction, cognitive robotics, and artificial intelligence in general. He holds a PhD from the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and before moving to Ghent worked for 15 years at the University of Plymouth (UK). Tony and his team study the science and technology of human-robot interaction and cognitive robotics. Starting from the premise that intelligence is rooted in social interaction, the teams work on AI to power social robots and studies how people respond to social robots.

For more details please contact Dr Angelo Cangelosi : angelo.cangelosi@manchester.ac.uk

I hope you are doing well. My name is Noora and I am part of Pint of Science, a worldwide science festival which brings researchers to your local pub/cafe/space to share their scientific discoveries. It is run by university students and is made up of several different themes. I am part of Manchester’s Technology Event. To celebrate everything tech (including robotics and AI, biotech and space technology) we are running dedicated evenings to the topics from May 13th - 15th from 7:30 to 9:30 pm at Station South Cycle Cafe Levenshulme.

Talks include:

Paving the road towards synthetic brains

The Intelligence Showdown: Machine Learning vs Cognitive Robotics

BL!NK: Augmenting contact lenses with sensors

Sustainable Bio-construction for Earth and Space

The Giant Foamboard Aircraft Research and Outreach Programme

And many more!

Further details on the talks and where to buy tickets are available here: https://pintofscience.co.uk/event/nanoscience-robotics-and-beyond or attached in the poster

All the best

Noora

Online event: 18-Jun-2024

Prof. John Goodacre is an invited speaker for Westminster eForum in his capacity as Challenge Director, Digital Security by Design UKRI. His keynote talk is entitled The way forward for innovative uses of AI and emerging technologies to deal with threats.

https://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/conference/Cyber-Resilience-24

Round 2 deadline: 05-Jun-2024
Round 3 deadline: 26-Sep-2024

https://royalsociety.org/grants/international-exchanges/

International Exchanges grants provide support for scientists based in the UK to stimulate new research collaborations with leading scientists overseas. Grants can cover either a one-off short visit to explore opportunities for building lasting networks or bilateral visits to strengthen emerging collaborations.

Funds can cover travel, subsistence and research expenses.

Global rounds (available in round 2 & 3)

 For travel to/from all countries/territories outside the UK. Funding available is dependent upon the length of the visit:

• up to £3,000 for a one-off visit lasting up to three months
• up to £6,000 for multiple visits to be completed within one year
• up to £12,000 for multiple visits to be completed within two years

Cost Share rounds

Grants are available for multiple visits to be completed over a fixed period of two years (fixed countries):

• up to £12,000 from the Royal Society
• an additional up to £12,000 equivalent from the Royal Society’s overseas cost-share funding partner
  • Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy (CNR) R2 only
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) R2 only
  • Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) R3 only
  • National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan (NSTC) R3 only

Full funding details can be found in the scheme notes for the Global round and the Cost Share rounds.

Opens: 12-Jun-24
Deadline: 07-Aug-24

https://royalsociety.org/grants/royal-society-wolfson-fellowship/

Round 3 Of the Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship is due to open in June. The scheme exists to to attract and recruit talented internationally-leading researchers to their organisation. It is for mid- or senior career researchers, with a proven track record for high-quality scientific research. It provides up to five years of funding with up to £300k available. 

Funds can cover:

• Salary Enhancement – The institution may include a salary enhancement for the researcher. This will be limited to a maximum of 20% of the total salary
• Research expenses – Including consumables, travel, small pieces of equipment of up to £10,000, and other appropriate and justified costs (including visa costs and fieldwork)
• Research assistance
• PhD studentship(s)

The Turing Innovation Catalyst has funding to support AI feasibility projects working with industry. A number of companies have already made proposals and are looking for academic partners, but you could also propose a project with an existing industry partner.
 
Projects will typically be funded for 6 months, with the award covering support from a pool of Research Software Engineers or your own PDRA, plus academic supervision time. Projects can start immediately, and need to be completed by 31st March 2025.

If you are interested in any of the existing industry proposals (see: https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=72382), or wish to propose your own project with an industry partner, please email crd@ticmanchester.org. If you would like to receive updates as new industry proposals become available please register your interest [manchester.us13.list-manage.com].