Will Byrne
I'm currently completing my PhD thesis on Computational Intelligence and Creative Design, under the supervision of Thorsten Schnier and Bob Hendley. My research interests are in design and creativity, adaptive systems, HCI, nature-inspired techniques and where they cross paths when applied to practical, real-world problems. I also did my MSc in Computer Science at Birmingham, after a break afetr my Physics degree at Leicester.
Creativity and design
I'm interested in how computers can behave more creatively, and with human creativity as a reference this means flexibly adapting existing knowledge to solve new problems. Creative behaviour should be generalisable but I'm currently looking at 'functional' problem solving in a physics-enabled 3D world.
HCI and adaptive systems
I'm also interested in how intelligent, adaptive systems can be used to support humans in various activities. On the MOBIlearn project I worked on the context-driven delivery of personalized content to mobile devices to support informal learning. The main focus was on a art gallery domain but the system was designed to support mobile learning in a wide range of contexts, including first aid training. I was also a Research Fellow on the CASAM (Computer-Aided Semantic Annotation of Multimedia) project from 2010-2011, and more recently developed a multi-touch application for the Suburban Birmingham: Spaces and Places project and the Heritage and Cultural Learning Hub.
Nature-Inspired Techniques
This includes taking inspiration from how humans do things as well as the more usual Computational Intelligence techniques, like evolutionary approaches, ACO etc. I'm also associated with Cercia and was involved in the Nature Inspired Creative Design network.