Postgraduate Student Profiles

ahmed kattan, phd 2010

The University of Essex is a high profile institution and the School has an excellent reputation, especially in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The Department’s academic members are some of the best researchers worldwide. At Essex research students get a unique opportunity to join many activities and workshops that help them in their careers. One of the most memorable experiences I found is in organising an annual conference (called CEEC) for research students to join, collaborate and discuss their research projects. In addition, Essex is a very international environment where about 50% of its students are from different parts of the world.

I finished my PhD from the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering in 2010. I received my MSc in Software Engineering from the same university in 2007.

I am mainly interested in Evolutionary Computation and my main research interest lies in the applications of Genetic Programming. To that extent, during my PhD, under the directions of Professor Riccardo Poli, I developed a series of universal compression systems based on the GP referred to as the GP-zip family. In addition, I proposed several new novel algorithms based on the use of GP for several applications such as:

data type analysis, Muscle Fatigue prediction and problem decomposing

Not long after I was awarded my PhD,  I obtained a position as a Research Associate at Loughborough University in the UK. I am working on a project associated with the EPSRC ‘Designing Mechanisms for Automated Resource Allocation’ project. I am also a visiting lecturer at Um Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia, in the Computer Science Department. In addition, I still maintain a research collaboration with my professors at the University of Essex. 

stephen dignum, PhD in computer science 2008

"I returned to the University in 2005 having completed my MSc a couple of years earlier.  My PhD, supervised by Riccardo Poli, looked at the biases of variation operators for Genetic Programming (GP), one of a number of Evolutionary Search methods.  The research had a theoretical basis and provided insights as to how GP searches a Program Space.

 Highlights during my time at Essex included presenting at international conferences where I was fortunate enough to receive a number of best paper awards and nominations.  I also enjoyed debating and progressing research ideas with fellow students, a process strongly encouraged by the school

 After completing my PhD, I worked as a Senior Research Officer for Udo Kruschwitz and Maria Fasli at the University before taking up a role as a Data Architect at Lloyds Banking Group.  I am currently working as the data lead on banking integration and divestment projects"

Zheng Lu, PhD in Electronic Systems Engineering 2006

"When I was selecting a university for postgraduate study, my first priority was the strength of the department. Essex is a high profile institution and the School has an excellent reputation, especially in telecommunications and optical networks.
 
In 2003 I completed my MSc Telecommunication and Information Systems. The practical sessions involving experiments and lab work were really useful, particularly for students who decide not to follow a career in academia, whereas the research projects are great for those who want to undertake further study.
 
Essex is a very international place with lots of opportunities to make friends from all corners of the globe. The buildings and labs offer the very latest technology, and the School is keen to progress and enhance learning opportunities wherever possible.
 
During my studies, I was given the opportunity to work as a graduate teaching assistant, gaining key teaching and communication skills that have proved to be extremely useful for my future career. Since completing my PhD, I’ve been employed by the University as a Research Officer, building upon the skills I learnt throughout my studies. The University offers an excellent environment to study in. The beautiful Colchester Campus, especially the area surrounding the lake, is very relaxing. It is a great place to catch up on studies or unwind with friends. I really enjoy studying and working at such a friendly and diverse institution."

Biliana Alexandrova Kabadjova

Biliana registered her PhD studies in CCFEA. She was supervised jointly by Andreas Krause (School of Management, University of Bath) and Edward Tsang. Under joint supervision, Biliana was able to tackle a very complex computational finance project.

Building on existing work, Biliana built one of the most advanced models (in terms of complexity and realism) of credit card payment in the world. With this model, she was able to predict market shares and demands. Given clear objectives, banks can also use her model to learn pricing strategies, as was demonstrated in her thesis.

She has had 4 conference papers published,1 book chapter accepted, and also has a few papers in the pipe-line.

Biliana works for the Bank of Mexico.

Erfu Yang, PhD in Computer Science 2008

I sought to have a systematic research experience in Robotics and Control through studying at PhD level in Computer Science and I chose Essex because Essex has an excellent research reputation in this field.   As well as furthering my knowledge in the field, I have learned how to carry out challenging research independently, and have also developed good skills for team work. Furthermore, working with different research teams on interdisciplinary projects gave me excellent preparation for my current job as a Research Fellow in the School of Engineering and Electronics at Edinburgh. I am working on the EPSRC grant (EP/C546318/1) for the Espacenet project (http://www.e-spacenet.net/) which aims to design evolvable and reconfigurable sensor networks and distributed reconfigurable System-On-Chip sensor nodes for aerospace-based monitoring and diagnostics.

Erfu is from Xindian, Jingning County, Gansu Province, China. He came to us with Bachelor of Engineering and Master of Engineering degrees from the School of Space Technology, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Erfu passed his viva on 16 April 2008. The title of his PhD thesis is “Model-Based Formation Control and Policy Learning for Leader-Follower Robotic Systems”. He was a member of the Human-Centred Robotics group and supervised by Dr Dongbing Gu.  During his PhD study, he published two journal papers, one book chapter, and nine conference papers. He is now a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.

Julian Togelius, PhD in Computer Science, 2007

Julian Togelius was an incredibly productive PhD student, publishing 16 papers, and passing his viva within three years of the start date.  He won the best student paper award at CEC 2005 with the paper Julian Togelius and Simon M. Lucas (2005): ‘Evolving Controllers for Simulated Car Racing.’  Proceedings of IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 1906-1913.

Julian is now working with the internationally renowned research group of Juergen Schmidhuber at IDSIA in Switzerland

Julian is pictured  (third from left) with Dr John Gan, Internal Examiner, his supervisor Simon Lucas and the External Examiner, Professor Peter Cowling of Bradford University.

Muhammad Yasir Qadri

I am involved in research in Low Power Processor Architecture, which is an active area in the field of embedded systems. There were several factors involved in choosing this university; some of them are its serene location, its strong faculty of Computer Science, and last but not the least a very strong and vigorous embedded systems research group. Having a good number of undergraduate and post graduate students, gives you a chance to become a Graduate Teaching Assistant. This not only gives one financial benefits but is an exciting opportunity to interact with multi-cultural group of students, and gain some teaching experience.

At Essex, the faculty and staff are very friendly and co-operative. I didn’t find any difficulty in mixing up with them. Being a research student, we don’t attend any classes which lessen one’s chance of social mixing with other students at the university. But Essex provides various activities like group meetings, PhD networking and training to address this issue. Being a research student gives you freedom with responsibility. You have to give presentation about you progress on quarterly basis. I used to work late and even on weekends and holidays; this flexibility definitely boosts my performance.

I think the School at Essex is one of the best in the UK. This is due to its high profiled and qualified faculty and strong research groups. I am a member of Islamic Society at the University which organizes several social events throughout the year, giving you a chance to meet other members of the Muslim community.

Abdullah Alsheddy, PhD in Computer Science

I chose to study at the University because the school provides a wide range of courses taught by qualified academic staff, particularly in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

The societies supervised by the student union at Essex have a great role helping you adapt yourself easily in terms of the social life. In particular, the Islamic society as well as the Saudi’s Student society tremendously contributes to make the university social life very interesting and enjoyable.

I really enjoy working with a research group as this helps the learning and researching processes as well as improving other personal skills.

The School is rich with qualified academic staff who are capable to teach numerous modules. The weekly seminar is very helpful and really useful.

The most useful aspect of my course is in being a member of a research group collaborating with an industrial company as this provides me with a great experience and sense of career.

Studying here gives you the chance to meet professionals and communicate with people from both the academic and industry. These discussions enlighten your way and help you to decide wisely where the best future could be.

The fondest memory of my time at Essex is being an organizer of two fabulous events in 2007/2008: 1) Islamic Awareness Week and the International Islamic Conference. 2) The Saudi’s Exhibition Day.