Our team

Areas of specialism

• Project management
• Optimisation of business operations
• Scrum Master

Biography

Nigel is a perceptive and commercially astute project manager with over 20 years’ experience leading and implementing academic research, technical and change transformation projects to align to a specific target operating model.

Passionate about business process improvement, process mapping, root cause analysis and planning and implementation, Nigel enables the successful delivery of the Centre, liaising with staff at both a strategic and operational level.

How you bring data to life

As the project manager, I am a “Servant Leader” and “Systems Thinker” using a combination of these characteristics to conceptualise through the lens of our stakeholders, how data can be transformed into business insight to make better informed decisions and polices across the public, private and charity sectors.

What you bring to the Centre

As a “Data Evangelist” I combine the professional services aspects of my role with my academic research colleagues to help drive fundamental and applied research for the advancement of our research streams, stakeholders, contribution to the wider academic community and the University of Essex.

Areas of specialism

• Data Science
• Social Science
• Programming

Biography

Dr Smruti Bulsari has rich and diverse experience in research spanning areas such as economic development, human development, early childhood education, public health and more.

As an award winning researcher with over 16 years experience, Dr Bulsari specialises in field surveys, data analysis and big data. She has taught microeconomics, research methodology, qualitative research, statistical analysis, data mining and the use of specialist software such as R, SPSS and Gretl.

Dr Bulsari has co-authored books on SPSS and R and continues to give fascinating research driven public talks on issues pertaining to women’s empowerment and health.

How you bring data to life

By making use of the data and discerning patterns that would be helpful to the policy makers – both in government and in the companies.

What you bring to the Centre

My vast experience of working on research projects of different genres, including working for the state government, district government, companies and independent academic research and a long teaching experience at various levels in a State University in India. I also bring in my skills of using data science tools and software.

Areas of specialism

• Natural Language Processing
• Deep Learning
• Software Programming

Biography

Husam Quteineh is a senior research officer specialising in Natural Language Processing (NLP). He is currently completing his PhD alongside his role at the Centre, his PhD addresses the issues of lack of textual data for downstream tasks in NLP.

Balancing fundamental research with applied, Husam's professional expertise span both private and public sectors, with projects that include applying Natural Language Processing in the development of chatbots, information retrieval engines, question answering systems and many more.

How you bring data to life

I build systems that bring value to unstructured data that otherwise would have been very difficult to make use of.

What you bring to the Centre

I bring a knowledge of fundamental and applied research in Natural Language Processing and related interdisciplinary fields.

Areas of specialism

• Natural Language Processing
• Distributed Systems and Micro Services
• Cloud Computing

Biography

Victor Perez is a Computer Engineering and a Data Scientist focused on the research of privacy-preserving tools. Through innovation and data science advancements, he pushes the boundaries of predictive models without compromising the privacy of sensitive data. With deep interest in applications for medical and socio-economic research, Victor brings expertise in cryptographic techniques and software development to build robust and secure software systems.

Victor’s expertise span beyond privacy-preserving tools, possessing extensive experience working for the business sector building end-to-end web applications with cutting-edge technologies in APIs, User Interfaces and Databases.

How you bring data to life

I build software systems and pipelines to effectively extract valuable insights from data.

What you bring to the Centre

I bring forth expertise in the design, testing and maintenance of software systems as well as knowledge on the design and optimisation of software algorithms.

Areas of specialism

• Public sector
• Stakeholder engagement
• Translating research into societal impact for public, not-for-profit and private sectors

Biography

Laura leads stakeholder engagement and publicity for the Centre. She specialises in public sector and has experience working in the NHS at a commissioning level.

Using a range of communication platforms and facilitating challenge labs, Laura enables organisations across the UK to benefit from academic expertise through fundamental and applied research.

How you bring data to life

I act as an enabler, helping organisations to benefit from the effective use of analytics and research, empowering them to translate the information into meaningful change for society.

What you bring to the Centre

I bring a knowledge of stakeholder’s needs, challenges and opportunities as well as the ability to bring together decision maker to influence policy and inform practice nationally.