People

Department of Psychology (University of Sheffield)

• Prof. Paul Dean

  Paul Dean trained as a Behavioural Neuroscientist, working initially on the functions of Primate Inferotemporal Cortex with Larry Weiskrantz and Alan Covey at Oxford. On moving to Sheffield, he studied the functions of Visual Cortex and Superior Colliculus in rodents, then became interested in Computational Neuroscience and the modelling of saccade control in robots and people. He is currently working on low-level oculomotor control as a test-bed for theories of cerebellar function.

• Dr John Porrill

  Dr John Porrill trained in Mathematics and Theoretical physics at Cambridge, working with John Stewart on topics in classical general relativity. He moved to Sheffield to work on human and computer vision with John Mayhew and John Frisby and has a continuing interest in the psychophysics of human stereo vision. Recent research projects include video tracking of eye movements and building the EyeLab open source model of the extraocular muscle system. He is currently working on computational models of the role of the cerebellum in the control of eye movements.

• Dr Sean Anderson

  Sean Anderson graduated in control and systems engineering (MEng) at the University of Sheffield in 2001. This was followed by a PhD, which developed non-linear systems modelling and predictive control strategies for large-scale combustion systems in the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering. He has now segued into investigating that biological electro-chemical counterpart system, which is the brain. More specifically he is working as a bridge between the biological modelling group in Edinburgh and the robotics group at UWE, synthesising adaptive, biologically motivated control algorithms.

The Bristol Robotics Laboratory (University of the West of England/University of Bristol)

• Prof. Chris Melhuish

  Chris Melhuish is Director of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory at the University of the West of England/University of Bristol, Bristol. The last 10 years have been spent working specifically on autonomous robot systems including robots which generate their energy from biomass using microbial fuel cells. He has worked on many aspects of collective minimalist techniques including locomotion kinesis and taxis, collective behaviour transition and building using stigmergy. He has a BSc in Geology, an MSc in computer science and a PhD in collective robotics. He is a Fellow of the BCS and a chartered engineer.

• Dr Tony Pipe

  Tony's work ranges from applications of electronics to medical systems through to biologically-inspired machine intelligence. His group are currently involved with hormone level tracking using microscopic magnets, electroacupuncture, Immunotronics (self-healing VLSI circuits), embedding mammalian brain function in VLSI circuits, implementing evolutionary computation, neural networks and fuzzy systems directly on VLSI circuits, and developing the silicon retina into a visual object recognition system. He also sometimes finds time to sleep and eat.

• Alex Lenz

  After completing a traditional apprenticeship programme as an electronics technician in the German manufacturing industry and his national service as a male nurse in a hospital, Alex studied for his first degree at the University of Applied Sciences in Trier, Germany. After graduating as a 'Diplom Ingenieur' he started his studies at UWE and finished his MSc Dissertation in the field of embedded on-line learning in November 2002. He has worked for Siemens VDO as a software development engineer and you can see some of his software running in the new VW Golf V and Passat VI. Alex now works as a full time Research Associate in the Bristol Robotics laboratory in Bristol employed as part of this collaborative project with Edinburgh and Sheffield Universities to implement biologically inspired control algorithms using hardware/software co-design technology.

• Thanushan Balakrishnan

  Thanushan Balakrishnan graduated in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University College London in 2004. Specialised in Digital electronics and embedded software development. He worked as a Technician at University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, in 2001 and did a summer placement with Aeroflex Incorporated, Stevenage, in 2003. Currently Thanushan works as a Research Technician at the Bristol Robotics LAB, UWE/Uni. of Bristol for this collaborative project. He designs, builds hardware and software for robotic counterparts of biologically inspired walking robot, and the implementation of Vestibulo-Ocular-Reflex on a robot for gaze stabilisation.

Neural Control Systems - Centre for Integrative Physiology (University of Edinburgh)

• Dr Mayank Dutia

  Mayank was a Wellcome Research Training Scholar at the Institute of Physiology, University of Glasgow (1974-78), where he studied the properties and functions of muscle spindle and tendon organ afferents for his PhD, under the supervision of Prof. Ian Boyd. Subsequently, as an MRC Research Fellow, Mayank investigated the interactions between vestibular and neck proprioceptive reflexes in the neck and forelimb muscles. He was appointed Lecturer in Physiology at Edinburgh in 1980, and continued work on vestibular and neck reflexes with grant support from the MRC. The group's current research interests are in the mechanisms of synaptic and neuronal plasticity in the vestibular system and cerebellum after de-afferentation of the inner ear (“vestibular compensation”), in cellular mechanisms of "motor learning", and in the actions of stress steroids on brain function and plasticity.

• Dr John Menzies

  John graduated in Pharmacology from the University of Aberdeen in 1995. He subsequently completed a PhD at Glasgow Caledonian University where he examined the role of peptide neurotransmitters in the enteric nervous system in inflammatory diseases. After a brief fling with proteomics, John garnered extensive experience in whole cell and single channel patch clamp electrophysiology at the Universities of Chicago and Edinburgh. His current interests centre on using whole cell electrophysiology to elucidate the cellular mechanisms that determine the intrinsic properties of vestibular nucleus neurons, and the rules that govern plastic changes in the intrinsic properties of these cells during cerebellum-dependent modification of the the VOR circuitry.