“Ethical music making with AI”, Barcelona, March 2023

My interdisciplinary research considers the relationship between AI and human creativity and includes ethics, creative practice, social science and the digital humanities. I am a full Professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, have published over 150 articles and led a range of national and international research projects funded by the UK and EU. I also hold honorary professorial research positions at Instituto de Investigación en Inteligencia Artificial (IIIA) Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain and Dip. di Elettronica Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

Back in the 1970s, I attended a comprehensive school in Southampton before gaining a place to study mathematics at Oxford University.  I stayed to take an MSc in Computation and then joined UCL to take a PhD student in AI called “Agents, Agency and Autonomy“.

I enjoyed the experiences in senior management as Pro-Warden (Pro-Vice Chancellor) Research and Enterprise (2013 to 2017) and Pro-Warden (Pro-Vice Chancellor) International (2017 to 2020), and the opportunity to lead the School of Professional Studies, Science and Technology (2015 – 2020) at what was an exciting time. 

I’ve been keen to support interdisciplinarity  and the diversity of research practice in the UK (and internationally) as a member of HEFCE’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Strategic Advisory Committee for several years before joining the  REF 2021 Interdisciplinary Research Advisory Panel. I co-founded the UK’s Practice Research Advisory Group (PRAG UK), recognising how under-represented and underappreciated practice research was in the UK and co-supervised the Research England project on Practice Research (published in 2021).  I was Deputy Convenor for the Creative Arts, Performing Arts & Design Panel of the Hong Kong Research Assessment Exercise 2020 and previously co-chair of the Special Track on AI and Arts at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

I’ve been a member of the EPSRC review college for over a decade, chairing a number of funding panels and was Chair of the Advisory Board for the EPSRC Programme Grant FAST (2015 to 2020). I have just taken on a senior role within the UKRI ‘s newly formed Interdisciplinary Assessment College and was recently invited to join Academia Europea (The Academy of Europe). 

I have spent four decades as a professional musician and received critical acclaim as a jazz pianist (including BBC National Radio stations, Jazz FM, BBC Music Magazine, The Guardian, The Observer and specialist Jazz magazines). I have enjoyed performing nationally and internationally since the 1980s, mainly as a band leader and across a wide range of music. One such band is the Mark d’Inverno Quintet.

For 22 years, I’ve loved being captain of the unwaveringly upbeat and inclusive Weekenders Cricket Club.  Unfortunately despite having a great time together we haven’t been great at winning many games. (Last season wins = 0)