Professor Neil Vaughan – Short Background
Current Position
Professor Neil Vaughan is a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow (RFREng) since 2018. Professor Neil Vaughan is based at University of Exeter (Russell Group) leading and supervising research team in Data Science and AI for healthcare, in the Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Science (IBCS). He is a Senior Member of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB), Senior member of IEEE (No. 94875568), Computational Intelligence Society, Full Fellow of AdvanceHE (HEA) with PGCert LTHE, EPSRC ICT Pioneer and Editor of the Journal of Behavioural Robotics.
Previous Positions
Since 2010 he held numerous tenured academic positions including 2019 Associate Professor (SL-B) University of Chester (UoC) and 2018 Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at University of Chester (UoC). 2018 Visiting full Professor at Chandigarh University, 2017 Assistant Professor at Indiana University & Purdue University, USA, 2017 Tenured Lecturer in Computing at University of West London (UWL), 2019 Associate Professor (SL-B) at University College Isle of Man, 2018 Associate Professor (SL-B) at Laksamana College of Business, Brunei, 2017 Associate Professor (SL-B) in London, Kensington College of Business and from 2010 was at Bournemouth University as Post-Doctoral researcher.
Research Awards
Professor Neil Vaughan has strong track record of research awards including 1st prize winner of 2019 Health Education and Training (HEAT) awards, 2018 Welsh Health Hackathon, 2017 Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowship, awarded the 2016 IT Innovation Award twice from the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). He received the NHS award: Acorn Innovation Prize from headquarters of the Department of Health with £10,000 prize. In 2015 he joined Shanghai Jiao Tong University #1 in China. In 2014 he was selected by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as UK ICT Pioneer receiving a prize for ‘Transforming Society’. He received prestigious BU Postgraduate Research Prize. In 2013 he was global recipient of the IET scholarship and the IET Innovation Awards, was selected for the Patient Safety Awards and the Times Higher Education Awards, and received 1st prize at highly competitive IET Ambition award in London. With MIT and Harvard his research in 2013 was awarded funding at the ASME Innovation Showcase 2013 as best research project in Europe. In 2011 he presented his research at UK parliament to MPs and the select committee for Science Engineering & Technology (SET). His research focusses on medical technology, Virtual Reality (VR) and computational intelligence. He was awarded Best Research prize and Blackwell Publishing Prize 2006 with Brunel University Medal in 2005 and Rotary International Council Research award in 2000. Before returning to academia, he worked 6 years in industry in computing health data research for government (LogicaCMG) and in 1980s-1990s he co-founded Key Resources Limited which became one of the leading dot-com bubble software supplier and consultancies based in Exeter.
Teaching – Module Leader
Professor Vaughan’s teaching at many universities has focussed mainly on Health Informatics, Machine learning, computational intelligence, data science, database management (CO6002), web management (CO6027), Electronics and Design engineering at levels 4-7.
At University of Exeter, he is involved with MSc Health Data Science.
At University of Chester, he was Senior Lecturer and leader and founder of the Bio-inspired Computing MSc module. He is module leader for level 6, CO6002 – Modern Database Management Systems and CO6027 – Managing a Web-based Environment for BSc Computer Science and BSc Cyber Security.
At Chandigarh University he was Visiting full Professor in CSE Artificial intelligence & Machine Learning.
At UoC Isle of Man, he was Senior Lecturer, module leader of level 6, CO6002 – Modern Database Management Systems and CO6027 and Managing a Web-based Environment.
At Laksamana College of Business, Brunei, he was Senior Lecturer, module leader of level 6, CO6002 – Modern Database Management Systems and CO6027 and Managing a Web-based Environment.
At Kensington College of Business, London, he was module leader of level 6, CO6002 – Modern Database Management Systems and CO6027 and Managing a Web-based Environment.
At University of West London (UWL) he was tenured academic lecturer and module leader for Information Systems in Healthcare and Data Architecture in Healthcare in the level 7 MSc Health Informatics and computer science level 6 modules.
At University of Indiana-Purdue he was appointed an Assistant Professor teaching programming for BSc computer and information science.
At Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University he was appointed an Assistant Professor teaching machine learning, programming and databases for BEng Computer Science and Technology.
At Bournemouth University he was Post-doctoral researcher and involved with teaching for BSc (Hons) Design Engineering and Electronics engineering.
At University of Granada, Spain he is involved with external examiner roles.
He actively participates in Learning and Teaching Conferences, including teaching enhancements for employability.
Since 2010 I have been involved with teaching at HEIs in UK and USA.
Editorial Roles in International Journal
- Editor of Paladyn Journal of Behavioral Robotics.
- Founding Editor of Topical Collection, Healthcare Intelligent Multi-Agent Systems (HIMAS2020), Springer Journal of Medical Systems (JMS), (Impact 2.4, Quartile 2, Est. 1977).
- Guest Editor for Special Issue, Topical Issue on Deep Learning and Neural Systems in Robotics, PJBR.
- Editor of Journal of Computer Science & Systems Biology.
- Editorial Board – Jacobs Journal of Computer Science.
- Editor of Journal of Swarm Intelligence and Evolutionary Computation.
- Reviewer of Elsevier Medical Engineering & Physics (Impact 2.4).
- Reviewer for Journal of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering (JCMSE) of IOS Press.
- Reviewer for Journal Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine (CMPB), 2015.
- Reviewer for MDPI Applied Sciences.
- Reviewer for MDPI Math. Comput. Appl.
- Reviewer for MDPI Sensors.
- Reviewer for MDPI Mathematics.
- Reviewer for MDPI Robotics.
Completed Research Supervision
I have completed research supervision for over 35 research projects since 2010.
This includes research supervision, external PhD examination, internal PhD examination, Masters Students, KTP Associates and Internships.
| Researcher Name | Project Title | Date |
| Cat Russon
Waqas Ashiq |
Machine Learning in Healthcare for Diabetes Automatic Segmentation of Breast mammograms with Convolutional Neural Network |
2020-Present
Feb 2019 – Nov 2019 |
| Fulons Solbakken | Procedural Generation of 3D Tree Models with Lindenmayer-Systems (Winner – Best Dissertation Prize 2019) | Oct 2018 – June 2019 |
| Arun George | Face Recognition Image Processing (OpenCV) and Python | Oct 2018 – June 2019 |
| David Hynes | Recommender System with Data Mining and Machine Learning | Oct 2018 – June 2019 |
| Jordan Steele | Image Recognition and Classification using OpenCV | Oct 2018 – June 2019 |
| Corey Williams | Adaptive Intelligent Smartphone User interface Design | Oct 2018 – June 2019 |
| Francesco Cosentino | Exploration and Implementation of Augmented Reality for External Beam Radiotherapy | June 2015 – July 2018 |
| Alejandro Rodriguez Aguilera | GPGPU methods for simulation and visualization of interactive volumetric models | June 2014 – September 2017 |
| Aaron Wolfenden | Ant Colony Optimisation applied to Robotic Path Planning | Oct 2017 – June 2018 |
| Kane Duffy | Medical Virtual Reality Simulator Development | Oct 2017 – June 2018 |
| Robert Dallas | Open Source Intelligence for Cyber Security | Oct 2017 – June 2018 |
| Perry Jones | Adaptive Online Learning for Computer Coding | Oct 2017 – June 2018 |
| Vijay Kumar Dhurway | Development of graphics for haptic robotic device manipulator technology | May 2016 – July 2016 |
| Amrit Kumar Muduli | Development of graphics for robotic device manipulator technology | May 2016 – July 2016 |
| Sambit Sahoo | Development of graphics for robotic device manipulator technology | May 2016 – July 2016 |
| Ngan Do Thi Tuyet | Development of graphics and hand motion tracking virtual reality training, with Unity, oculus rift and leap motion. | May 2016 – July 2016 |
| Sagar Setu | Computer vision for Needle Detection in Medical Applications | May 2013 – July 2013 |
| Suhas Banshiwala | Wireless Medical Device for Data Collection with Arduino and PIC Microcontrollers | May 2013 – July 2013 |
Conference Organisation and Programme Committee Roles
| Position | Conference | Date |
| Chair | Visualisation of Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (VizGEC) at GECCO 2021, Cancun Mexico | 2021 |
| Chair | Medical applications of Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (MedGEC) at GECCO 2020, Cancun Mexico | 2020 |
| Chair | Visualisation of Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (VizGEC) at GECCO 2020, Cancun Mexico. | 2020 |
| General Chair | Founder of: Healthcare Intelligent Multi-agent Systems (HIMAS2020) at AAMAS 2020, Auckland, NZ. | 2020 |
| Founding Chair | Founder of The Evolutionary Computation in Healthcare (TECH2020) at WCCI 2020, Glasgow UK. | 2020 |
| International Program Committee | International Conference on Artificial Life (ALIFE). | 2019 |
| Program Committee | Human Computer Interaction (HCI) International Conference, Belfast | 2018 |
| International Program Committee | European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL). | 2018 |
| International Program Committee | Edutainment International Conference, Xi’an, China. | 2018 |
| International Program Committee | Cyberworlds 2017 International Conference (University of Chester) | 2017 |
| International Program Committee | International Conference on Artificial Life (ALIFE). | 2016 |
| International Program Committee | European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL). | 2016 |
| International Program Committee | European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL). | 2016 |
| The Chair | Informatics Track Workshops, Design of Medical Devices International Conference, USA | 2011-2016 |
| Technical Program Committee (TPC) member | International Conference on Natural Computation (ICNC) | 2015-16 |
| Technical Program Committee (TPC) member | Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (FSKD) International conference. Nanyang Technological University, China. | 2015-16 |
| Chair | Autonomous Robotics Session, European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL). | 2015-present |
| International Committee | Artificial Life (ALIFE) International conference | 2015-present |
| Reviewer | International Conf. of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering (ICCMSE), Athens, Greece. | 2015 |
| International Committee | VES (Virtual Environments & Systems) conference meetings, ASME IDETC Computers and Information in Engineering Conference | 2015 |
| Chair | International Informatics Track, Design of Medical Devices (DMD) Conference, Minneapolis, USA | 2015 |
| Chair | Informatics Track, Design of Medical Devices (DMD) International Conference, Minneapolis, USA | 2014 |
| International Committee | VES (Virtual Environments & Systems) conference meetings, ASME IDETC Computers and Information in Engineering Conference | 2014 |
| Chair | Workshop on Medical Technology, Design of Medical Devices (DMD) International Conference, USA | 2013 |
| International Committee | Advanced Modelling & Simulation (AMS), ASME IDETC Computers and Information in Engineering International Conference | 2013 |
| Chair | Informatics Track, Design of Medical Devices (DMD) International Conference, Minneapolis, USA | 2012 |
| Programme Committee | Advanced Modelling & Simulation (AMS), ASME IDETC Computers and Information in Engineering International Conference | 2012-present |
| Programme Committee | VES (Virtual Environments & Systems) conference meetings, ASME IDETC Computers and Information in Engineering Conference | 2012-present |
| Reviewer, Program Committee | ASME International Design Engineering & Technical Conference (IDETC) USA | 2012-present |
| Co-Chair | Informatics Track, Design of Medical Devices (DMD) International Conference, Minneapolis, USA | 2011 |
Invited / Keynote Talks on Research
Invited talk at 2019 Voice of the Future organised by the Royal Society of Biology, taking place in in UK Parliament.
Invited talk at 2018 All Party Parliamentary Engineering Group (APPEG), House of Lords.
Invited talk at 2018 Fellow’s Day, Royal Academy of Engineering.
Invited talk at 2019 International Conference on Soft Computing and Machine Learning (SCML), Wuhan, China.
Workshop delivered at createChester conference 2018.
Invited talk at Edutainment 2019, Xi’an, China.
Invited Keynote talk at 5th International Conference on Biometrics & Biostatistics. October 20-21, 2016 Houston, TX.
Invited talk at Chinese Academy of Science Institute of Automation (CASIA), Beijing, China, Aug 25th 2015.
Invited Keynote talk at 2015 International Conference on Advanced Mechatronic Systems, China, Beijing Univ. of Posts and Telecommunications, Aug 22nd 2015.
Invited speaker for Informatics – Design of Medical Device Conference, USA 2014.
Newspaper and Magazine Research Profiles
BU Annual Review 2014 – Page 4.
Bournemouth Research Chronicle, Jan 2014, Edition 3, p12.
ASME Mechanical Engineering Magazine, June 2013, p30-31 – Semi-finalist Innovation Showcase. – Seen by 130,000 ASME members in 158 countries worldwide, est.1880.
NHS Grapevine magazine 2013, May/June 2011 – Issue 31, Page 11.
The Engineer magazine – April 2013 Edition
Politics First magazine – March 2014 Edition, advertorial feature.
Conservative MP website, July 2014.
Shown in the House of Commons, April 2011.
Professional Practice and Enterprise
Developed several research council and funding bids at various academic and medical levels.
Work towards Research excellence framework (REF 2020), Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).
Collaborative links with enterprise partners
Kimal, Plc.
Pharmabotics, Ltd.
Limbs & Things, Ltd.
Capital Kinetics, Ltd.
Wessex Academic Health Science Network.
NHS Innovations Ltd.
Key Resources Ltd.
BUI Ltd.
Knowledge Medical Systems Ltd.
Membership of Professional Bodies
Senior member of IEEE (No. 94875568).
Scholarship and Member of Institute of Engineering & Tech (IET) 2010-present.
Research Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering
Member of American Soc. of Mech Eng (ASME) 2010-present.
Senior Member of International Society of Artificial Life (ISAL).
Senior Member of Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB) 2012-present.
Nominated for EPSRC Strategic Advisory Team Committee, Programme Advisory Board for ICT Fundamentals 2014.
Industry Experience
LogicaCMG 2006 – 2010 Research Software Engineer (RSE)
World leading software services provider employing 40,000 worldwide
RAF Data Centre – 2010 Research in Data Migration Computing
Parlimentary Ombudsman Data Centre – 2010 Research in Virtual Healthcare Training
European Space Agency (Rome, Italy) – 2009 Researcher in 3D Software and Galileo Satellite software
Ministry of Defence (Northern Ireland) – 2008 Researcher in Computer Security Penetration Testing
Office of Fair Trading – 2006 – 2007 Research Software Engineer (RSE)
Shamrock Marketing – 2003 – 2004 Research Software Engineer (RSE)
Key Resources Ltd. – 1997 – 2000 Co founder of startup company in Research for server-side web application technology
Technical Experience
OpenGL Graphics Programming
Microcontrollers and Integrated circuits
Medical Simulations and Biomechanical Engineering
Biosensors and patient monitoring
Computer Vision, Face Recognition
Evolutionary and Genetic Algorithms
Magazine/newspaper cuttings:
NHS Innovation Magazine June 2016
Front Page Headline Article in Anaesthesia News Magazine, May 2013, ISSN 0959-2962 No. 310, page 7, available online: https://www.aagbi.org/sites/default/files/May_ANews_Web.pdf
NHS Grapevine Magazine 2014
Article in The Engineer magazine, available online: https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/april-2013-online/haptic-simulator-helps-with-epidural-training/
Final Report showing Clinical Trial Results, from The National Institute of Academic Anaesthesia, available online: https://www.niaa.org.uk/download.php/?fn=Final%20Report%20from%20Prof%20M%20Wee.pdf&mime=application/pdf&pureFn=Final%20Report%20from%20Prof%20M%20Wee.pdf
Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) 2013, Dr Vaughan is recipient of the IET Scholarship: http://www.theiet.org/policy/media/press-releases/20130812.cfm
Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) 2013 Winner of the Innovation Award for Information Technology (IT): http://conferences.theiet.org/innovation/categories/information/past-winners/index.cfm
Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) 2016 Winner of the Innovation Award for Information Technology (IT): http://conferences.theiet.org/innovation/categories/information/index.cfm
External Funding Successfully Awarded:
| Funder | Start Date | End Date | Project Title | Financial Value |
| Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship | 01.01.2018 | 31.12.2022 | Frameworks for Virtual Reality Medical Training Simulators: Skill Assessment and Tissue Modelling | £507,000 |
| Health and Care Research Wales: Pathway to Portfolio Funding | 01.03.2019 | 01.08.2019 | ParaVR CPR Training Simulator for Schools | £18,423 |
| Bevan Commission 1st Prize Welsh Health Hack Winner | 01.10.2018 | 01.06.2019 | ParaVR – VR training simulator for paramedics | £7,500 |
| Santander Universities International Research Excellence Award Funding (IREA). | 01.01.2018 | 31.07.2019 | Collaboration on Next Generation Evolving Neural Networks | £600 |
| University of Chester Faculty Small Grants Scheme | 01.01.2019 | 31.07.2019 | Adaptation of Skills Training within Virtual Reality Medical Applications. | £1000 |
| Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy | 01.04.2018 | 01.09.2018 | British Council NSF-China Newton Researcher Links Workshop | £2,100 |
| National Science Foundation (NSF) of China | 01.04.2018 | 01.09.2018 | Workshop on Health and Well-being Through VR and AR | £2,400 |
| Newton Fund – British Council | 01.04.2018 | 01.09.2018 | Edutainment 2019 Conference, Xi’an China | £3,500 |
| University of Chester Staff Conference Attendance Fund | 01.03.2018 | 01.07.2018 | IEEE Conference on Evolving & Adaptive Intelligent Systems | £400 |
| HEIF Bournemouth University QR Fund | 01.06.2016 | 01.02.2017 | SMART research group – REF impact & outreach | £30,068.30 |
| RKEO Bridging Fund – Bournemouth University | 01.01.2017 | 01.06.2017 | Research Fellowship Award | £10,022 |
| Research Excellence Framework (REF) Impact Accelerator Fund | 2016 March | 2016 September | Epidural Simulator Virtual Reality | £2,500 |
| AAGBI Research Grant | 2016 March | 2017 March | Epidural Simulator Virtual Reality | £15,000 |
| Associate of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) Early Career Grant | 2016 January | 2016 July | ACU Early Career Grant | £2,000 |
| NHS Acorn Innovation Challenge: 1st place in UK competition | 2015 December | 2016 December | Neuropathy Smartphone Health Device (Patented) | £10,000 |
| European Union (EU) IRIS Collaboration UK-China project | 2015 July | 2015 December | RABOT Project UK-China Collaboration Shanghai Xiaotong | £3,000 |
| Newton Fund: Institutional Links Research Workshop | 2015 Jan | 2015 July | Newton Fund Researcher Links | £3,500 |
| Wessex Academic Health Science Network | 2014 September | 2015 September | Development of virtual reality NHS training | £136,000 |
| Royal Bournemouth & Christchurch Hospital NHS FT | 2014 September | 2015 September
|
Development of Smartphone apps for Health (Patented) | £18,000 |
| Scholarship of Institution of Engineering & Technology (SIET) (Only 2 in the UK) | 2013 June | 2013 June | Recipient of the IET Scholarship 2013 | £2,500 |
| American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) Innovation Showcase Grant | 2013 March | 2013 September | Collaboration with Harvard, Yale, MIT | $3,000 |
| OAA (Obstetric Anaesthetists Association) | 2012 June | 2014 June | NHS Clinical Trial: Quantification of pressures in labouring women of varying BMIs. | £32,000
|
| Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | 2010 December | 2014 April | Joint funding for 3 year PhD Research Project | £20,700 |
| Bournemouth University Research Funding | 2010 December | 2014 April | Joint funding for 3 year PhD Research Project | £20,700 |
| European Space Agency Inmarsat & LogicaCMG | 2007 July | 2010 December | Inmarsat Satellite Software Development | £1,200,000 |
| Blackwell publishing Prize funding. | 2005 July | 2005 December | Blackwell publishing Prize | £50 |
| Brunel University Medal Prize funding. | 2006 May | 2006 July | Best Research – Brunel University Medal | £75 |
| Rotary International Council research funding. | 1999 Dec | 2000 May | Research Prize | £25 |
Grants applied for
| 2016, Dec | Fellowship Application – Virtual Training Simulator | £360,243 |
| 2016, Nov | Adaptive VR Framework (5 year project) | £630,000 |
| 2016, Oct | I4i VR Training Simulator (3 year project) | £402,460 |
| 2016, Oct | EPSRC Network Plus – Internet of things | £45,321 |
| 2016, Feb | Adaptive Virtual Training Simulator (2016, March) – 3 year project. | £474,962 |
| 2016, Jan | VR Training Simulator and Clinical Data Collection Trial – 3 year project, (63 pages). | £345,927 |
| 2015, Sept | Two funding applications for incoming European Commission (EU) Marie Curie Fellowships | (2x $195,000 Euro) |
| 2014 Nov
2014 Nov
2014 Nov
2014 Nov
2014 Oct
2014 Sep
2014 Aug
2014 July
2014 Jun
2014 Feb
2014 Jan
2014 Jan
2012
2012
|
Prototype for epidural insertion
Hip replacement simulator for elderly patients
Patient specific- Hip surgery training simulator
Orthopaedic Training Simulator
Hip Replacement Training Simulator
Hip Replacement Training Simulator
Simulator Development for Epidural Training
Clinical trial data collection framework
Collaboration for commercialising medical devices
Development of patient-specific data-driven epidural simulator
Data-driven tissue deformation modelling for patient specific surgical application Tissue modelling heterogeneous density distribution for additive manufacturing Quantification of pressures in labouring women of varying BMIs
Quantification of pressures in labouring women of varying BMIs
|
£100,000
£15,000 £448,000
£20,000
£50,000
£275,000
£275,000
£280,000
£40,000
£270,000
£280,000
£250,000
£36,268
£32,000 £32,543 |