Draft:James Marshall (scientist)
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Last edited by Jarmarshall (talk | contribs) 0 seconds ago. (Update) |
James A. R. Marshall | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | British |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Exeter, De Montfort University |
| Doctoral advisor | Jon E Rowe |
| Influences | John McNamara FRS, Alasdair Houston FRS, Tom Seeley FAAAS |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Computer Science |
| Sub-discipline | Biology |
James A. R. Marshall is a British computer scientist and theoretical biologist, known for his work at the intersection of the evolutionary and behavioural sciences, computer science, and robotics. He is Founder Science Officer at Opteran, and Director of the Centre for Machine Intelligence at the University of Sheffield.
Career
[edit]After training as a computer scientist Marshall's academic journey into biology began during his doctoral studies, where he worked on the evolution of social behaviour. Concurrently with this he gained experience of symbolic Artificial Intelligence technologies while working in Research and Development at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, in London[1]. On completion of his studies Marshall took up a research position in numerical modelling of complex systems at Imperial College London, before moving to the University of Bristol, and then the University of Sheffield, to work on the behaviour of collectives, including animals, neurons, and robots, through several basic research grants including the European Research Council Consolidator Grant. During this time Marshall also began the computational study of individual insect brains to develop bio-inspired robotic controllers.
Contributions
[edit]Marshall’s primary contributions are in the areas of collective animal behaviour, behavioural ecology and evolutionary theory, and computational neuroscience and robotics. His work fuses approaches from evolutionary and optimality theory, and experimental biology, with mechanistic models suitable for deployment and testing in artificial systems. He is especially known for working with social insects, particularly honeybees[2][3], and testing the resulting theory in robots[4][5]. He has argued for biology as a source of alternative inspiration to modern statistical machine learning techniques to both professional and lay audiences[6][7]
Inclusive Fitness Theory Controversy
[edit]From 2010 onwards Marshall participated in the resolution of the high-profile[8] attacks on inclusive fitness theory by prominent Harvard academics E. O. Wilson and Martin Nowak[9][10]. In 2015 he published a monograph intended to explain the workings of the theory and its relationship to competitor frameworks[11].
Opteran Technologies
[edit]In 2020 Marshall co-founded the deep tech spinout, Opteran Technologies[12], working there as Chief Science Officer from its foundation until 2024, when he took up the position of Founder Science Officer.
Centre for Machine Intelligence
[edit]In 2024 Marshall took up the position of Director of the newly-established Centre for Machine Intelligence at the University of Sheffield[13].
Selected Grants and Awards
[edit]- 2015 European Research Council Consolidator Grant[14][15]
- 2016 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Programme Grant[16][17]
References
[edit]- ^ https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=18bab5069d96b2d4d4fab9f160c750605f62f2ef
- ^ https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1210361
- ^ https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004887
- ^ https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/scirobotics.abl6334
- ^ https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/113479/1/IJCNN%20Bee%20Quad%20Final.pdf
- ^ https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=VNMIqx4AAAAJ&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=VNMIqx4AAAAJ:j8SEvjWlNXcC
- ^ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0262407921002797
- ^ https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/science/31social.html
- ^ https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09831
- ^ https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/abstract/S0169-5347(11)00116-9
- ^ https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691161563/social-evolution-and-inclusive-fitness-theory
- ^ https://www.opteran.com
- ^ https://theaiinsider.tech/2024/04/27/world-leading-expert-on-bio-inspired-ai-to-direct-university-of-sheffields-centre-for-machine-intelligence/
- ^ https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/647704/reporting
- ^ http://diode.sites.sheffield.ac.uk
- ^ https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FP006094%2F1
- ^ http://brainsonboard.co.uk