Layla Robinson is Chief Partnership & Strategy Officer for Research Data Scotland. She has 20 years of working in partnerships, strategy, communications and related fields, mainly around research. She has worked in the charity, private and research sectors in Edinburgh, London and internationally. At RDS, she oversees partnerships, strategy, public engagement and communications.
Dr Michael Salter is the Scientia Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of New South Wales and a member of the leadership team at Childlight. He is an expert in the study of child sexual abuse, gender-based violence and complex trauma. Dr Salter is the President of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) where he has served on the Board of Directors since 2018. He is the Chair of the Grace Tame Foundation, which is dedicated to the prevention of child sexual abuse. His research engages with policy and practice across multiple sectors, including mental health, social work, child protection, law enforcement and internet regulation.
Joe is the Senior Specialist in K2 Management’s Offshore Wind Analysis team, and was heavily involved in the undertaking of the world’s largest validation of offshore energy yield assessment to date, recently published by K2 Management.
Joe has conducted energy yield analyses for some of the biggest offshore wind farms currently under development and has over 12 years of experience in the offshore energy industry.
Jessica is a senior data scientist at Energy Systems Catapult, which has the mission to unleash innovation and open new markets to capture the clean growth opportunity. Having worked in the data and analytics space for the past ten years and across several industries, Jessica is currently the Catapult’s technical lead for the Smart Manufacturing Data Hub programme, where her team and her are developing innovative analytics solutions for manufacturing SMEs aimed at increasing energy efficiency within the sector. Besides this, Jessica has been involved in several other projects aimed at promoting open data to foster innovation and at applying data science and AI to arising challenges in the energy sector.
Professor Parsons is the Director of EPCC, the supercomputing centre at the University of Edinburgh. EPCC operates many of the UK’s national research computing services including the new ARCHER2 National Supercomputer. He works part-time for EPSRC at UKRI as the Director of Research Computing and is also a Director of Research Data Scotland. Professor Parsons has many research interests that span next generation supercomputing technologies to the provision and use of digital health data for research purposes. He leads the operation of the Scottish National Safe Haven at EPCC.
Dr Ken Sutherland is a leading engineering figure at the interface between medicine, engineering and the life sciences in Scotland and the UK. His influence in this sector has translated into global medical products that bring benefit to clinicians, patients, researchers and the medical industry. In his role as President of Canon Medical Europe he has secured £100 million of inward investment from Japan for UK R&D in the last 10 years. His current vision in precision medicine is driving a new initiative in artificial intelligence/data via the recently founded Industrial Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research in Digital Diagnostics (ICAIRD), a collaboration between companies, universities and the NHS.
As Director of the Data for Children Collaborative – a specialist hub in the Edinburgh Futures Institute at the University of Edinburgh - Alex is responsible for the strategic and operational delivery of actionable insight through innovative use of data and data science methodologies. Alex has led the team to; design an operating model to build diverse collaborative teams from academia, public and private sectors; develop a bespoke 'Responsible Innovation' framework to consider how best to work with data, and to keep our focus on children at the centre in all that we do; and create a portfolio of projects answering challenge questions from third and public sector organisations.
Prior to this role, Alex draws on over 10 years of experience of working in the finance sector, with roles on change programmes and latterly in the domain of data management and governance.
David brings three decades of vocational training experience across colleges, and universities. As the Curriculum Portfolio Manager for Data Driven Innovation skills, he plays a pivotal role in the Data Driven Innovation Skills Gateway Project at the core of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal's skills initiative. This project aims to empower city residents with data literacy skills for future job prospects. Collaborating with colleagues from Colleges across the region including Borders, Fife, Edinburgh, and West Lothian, he is developing data skills across a range of vocational courses.
Gnanathusharan (Thusha) Rajendran is Professor of Developmental Psychology and Director of the Centre for Applied Behavioural Sciences at Heriot-Watt University and The National Robotarium (Edinburgh, Scotland, UK). He researches socio-cognitive development in both atypical and typical populations – and human-robot interaction. Additionally, he publishes theory and research methods papers reframing abnormality in developmental conditions as neurodiversity and how to conduct research in developmental conditions.
Stephanie Hare researches technology, politics, history, and the world of work and shares her findings through writing, radio, television, and keynotes.
Her new book, Technology Is Not Neutral: A Short Guide to Technology Ethics, was selected as one of the best books of summer 2022 by the Financial Times and as one of the best books of 2022 so far by FT readers.
Manira Ahmad has had a varied career history spanning both private and public sectors, focusing on systems, emotional architecture and the importance of lived experience. Manira has worked across the financial industry, involved in global workforce planning and investment in offshore trading. She joined the public sector in 2015, and was appointed to lead the deployment of Local Intelligence across Health and Social Care. Supporting Integration Authorities in Scotland in co-designing linked data across multiple care sectors to support improved decision making for health and wellbeing.
Manira has been part of the design and development of Public Health Scotland, to deliver an organisation equipped to meet Scotland's future public health challenges and developing a nation where everyone thrives.
Manira is learning and sharing with Health and Care colleagues, seeking opportunities to collaborate with different nations in order to bring innovative solutions using data and intelligence to support communities across Scotland.
She is very passionate in supporting the wellbeing of individuals, working closely with communities to build local resilience through story-telling by shifting our thinking and the conversation to “what really matters”.
David Lee has chaired more than 400 events, 300+ in-person and over 100 online - including the last three data conferences. He also shapes the agenda for this annual conference, scripts and hosts the Data Capital podcast and edits the quarterly Scotsman data supplement.
His other varied areas of expertise include sustainability, legal affairs, life sciences and higher education. He hosts podcasts for a range of clients, is a Director of PA Cooperative and has his own media training business.
Away from work, he is a father of four grown-up kids (and two border collies), a passionate coastal rower and a shouty footballer of declining ability.
John Underhill is Aberdeen University’s Director for Energy Transition and Professor in Geoscience and Energy Transition. He is the academic executive director of the Centre of Doctoral Training (CDT) GeoNetZero that is investigating the role that geoscience plays in the low carbon energy transition and challenge to meet net zero emissions targets. He populates the Scottish Science Advisory Council (SSAC), for whom he led and co-authored a Governmental report on Hydrogen, and sits on the UK’s Subsurface Task Force (XTF) and North Sea Transition Authority’s Dada Advisory Group. His research interests focus upon the role of geoscience in the energy transition and use of methods and data in providing the best solutions and outcomes to deliver low-carbon net zero goals. John has led research looking at and seeking to resolve the conflicts in offshore areas resulting from the co-location of energy technologies and other stakeholders and use technical inputs to inform policy and decision making. Before taking up an academic career - that has seen him hold posts at Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt and Aberdeen Universities = John worked as an Exploration Geoscientist for Shell and has also undertaken sabbaticals with bp and Norsk Hydro. An unusual fact is that he also was a professional football referee who officiated at the top level in Scotland and European Champions League.
Chief Digital & Information Officer at the North Sea Transition Authority with the remit to digitally transform the organisation to influence and regulate the oil, gas and carbon storage industries. He has been integral in the development of NSTA’s Digital Energy Platform, providing data services to industry, government, academia and the public.
Steph is a data science enthusiast with specific experience of the healthcare domain. She has a diverse background ranging from astrophysics to genomics in academia and film & TV to dance in the arts and the third sector. A project and programme management professional, she loves to develop and build collaborations across organisations to help people with their data/AI journey.
Steph led on Data Lab’s efforts in support of the Scottish Government in developing Scotland’s AI Strategy and she’s now excited to lead on the delivery of the strategy’s vision for Scotland to be a leader in the development and use of trustworthy, ethical and inclusive AI. She is also Co-Founder of Diverse AI.
Emily is Head of Data Applications at Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS), having joined the business at the end of 2021. She leads a multi-disciplinary data applications team comprised of data scientists, data engineers and visualisation experts who use advanced data analytical techniques including artificial intelligence and machine learning to build applications designed to enhance the experience of growing in an IGS Growth Tower for the business’ customers.
Prior to joining IGS, Emily worked as an innovation consultant in the agritech industry. She has also worked for a private investment and management company, focusing on sustainable agriculture projects in South America and Eastern Europe.
He is interested in a wide range of theoretical and practical issues in machine learning, statistical pattern recognition, probabilistic graphical models and computer vision. This includes theoretical foundations, the development of new models and algorithms, and applications. His main areas of research are in visual object recognition and image understanding, models for understanding time-series, AI for data analytics, unsupervised learning, and Gaussian processes.
He obtained his MSc (1990) and PhD (1994) at the University of Toronto, under the supervision of Geoff Hinton. He was a member of the Neural Computing Research Group at Aston University from 1994 to 1998, and has been at the University of Edinburgh since 1998. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021, is a Fellow of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS), a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute (UK), and was program co-chair of the NeurIPS conference in 2009.
Shannon Vallor is the Baillie Gifford Professor in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh, where she directs the Centre for Technomoral Futures in the Edinburgh Futures Institute. She is a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute and co-director of the UKRI BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) Programme. Professor Vallor's research maps the ethical challenges and opportunities posed by data-driven innovation, and her work includes advising academia, government and industry on the ethical design and use of AI
Toni is a Computing Science teacher and currently co-lead of Scottish Teachers Advancing Computing Science. She is also the Founder of the non-profit charity dressCode. The aim of dressCode is to help close the gender gap in Computing Science and to help increase the uptake of Computing Science at school level. Toni is also the co-founder of the Ada Scot festival and the Digital Technology Education Charter.
dressCode have also launched Computing Science Scotland and are working with a team of leading Computing Science teachers in Scotland. Computing Science Scotland is a national initiative with the aim to help support, encourage and champion Computing Science teachers.
The work she has done to raise the profile and to support Computing Science as a subject at schools, help inspire the next generation, and work to help close the gender gap has been recognised by a number of awards and recognition most notably she received an honorary doctorate degree from RGU for dedication to computing science education, advancing the subject across the country and furthering women in technology.
Alexandra Reissig is the Chief Operations Officer and Head of Product at Smplicare, a digital platform dedicated to empowering independence. With a focus on innovative health informatics, Smplicare provides actionable insights to empower individuals and enhance their well-being as they age. In her role, Alexandra takes charge of setting team objectives and supporting their achievement, formulating product strategy, and executing the product plan. Alexandra constantly strives to understand the needs of Smplicare's customers, facilitating their ability to live independently for longer. Beyond her professional endeavours, Alexandra is an avid reader and finds joy in the art of knitting.
