Alan Turing Institute Fellowships success

A total of 40 researchers from Leeds are celebrating earning fellowships at the prestigious Alan Turing Institute.

The UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence (AI) rewards scholars specialising in these areas of research with fellowships that allow them to collaborate on projects across the organisation’s university partner network to help shape the future in these fields.

The 40 academics from Leeds include 15 existing fellows from the 2018 cohort, who’ve had their fellowships renewed, and 25 new appointments, who will join the Turing’s community of researchers aiming to address challenges facing science, society and the economy.

Fellowships commence from Friday 1st October 2021 for a duration of 12 months, with projects between our fellows and the Turing’s research teams being led by the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics (LIDA) – a well-established hub for multidisciplinary data science and AI.

‘Collaboration rather than competition’

Leeds established its partnership with the Turing back in 2018, and the new fellowships are a sign of both the strong and growing relationship with this prestigious institute, and a recognition of the effective research being conducted at the University.

Such alliances also align with the key aims of our new University strategy – Universal Values, Global Change – which sets out our ambitions to build a thriving community and a collaborative culture to make an impact locally and globally in areas including research and innovation, helping tackle the unprecedented challenges facing our world.

Leeds and the Turing aim to create an effective research network

Professor Nick Plant, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation, said: “Our partnership with the Alan Turing Institute is a critical part of the University, and national, strategy to build on our excellence in data science and artificial intelligence.

“The Turing Fellows are a physical embodiment of this partnership, spanning different career stages and disciplines, acting as important advocates for the partnership, and how collaboration rather than competition is vital to address the critical challenges that face our world.

“I congratulate all our fellows, and look forward to seeing them push the boundaries in their research areas over the coming months.”

Using AI to transform lives

Leeds Fellows will tackle projects in defence and security; financial innovation; data-centric engineering, and other challenges facing academia.

Returning Turing Fellow, Professor Nick Malleson from the School of Geography, said: “My Turing project is exploring how we can we start to build more reliable urban models for phenomena such as traffic congestion or crowding in busy public spaces.

“The Turing Fellowship is invaluable for such projects because it provides opportunities to collaborate with academics, industry and policy makers from a variety of different settings.

Professor Nick Malleson’s Turing project aims to understand uncertainties in urban systems

“The research is fundamentally highly multidisciplinary, bringing together computational geography, computer science, engineering and mathematics, so would be impossible without the networks that we have built up through the Turing.”

New Turing Fellow, who is also from the School of Geography, Dr Victoria Houlden, said: “My research focuses on the ways in which spaces and places can embody - and be used to address - social inequalities, with a core interest in understanding and informing urban greenspace use to support mental health.

Dr Victoria Houlden aims to use her fellowship to tackle challenges in healthy, sustainable developments

“I’m really excited to have been awarded a Turing Fellowship, and look forward to collaborating with, and learning from, more experienced fellows to maximise research efficiency and impact, as we continue to tackle some of the biggest global challenges in healthy, sustainable development.”

Covering a range of disciplines and representing faculties across the University, the Turing Fellows highlight the growth of data science and AI throughout our research spectrum.

Visit LIDA’s website to view the full list of our Turing Fellows.