Professor Nick Jennings

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Professor Jennings divides his time between his posts as a Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government and Professor of Computer Science in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at Southampton University, where  he heads the Agents, Interaction and Complexity Group (he previously headed the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group). He is also the Chief Scientist for aroxo and lostwax/aerogility.

Nick is an internationally-recognised authority in the areas of agent-based computing and intelligent systems. His research covers both the science and the engineering of such systems. Specifically, he has undertaken fundamental research on automated bargaining, auctions, markets, mechanism design, trust and reputation, coalition formation and decentralised control. He has also pioneered the application of multi-agent technology; developing some of the first real-world systems (in domains such as business process management, energy systems, sensor networks, disaster response, telecommunications, and eDefence) and generally advocating the area of agent-oriented software engineering.  

In undertaking this research, he has attracted grant income of over £20M (mainly from EPSRC), published more than 500 articles (with some 250 co-authors) and graduated 30 PhD students (two of whom have won the BCS/CPHC Distinguished Dissertation Award). He is recognised as highly cited by ISI Web of Science in both the Engineering and the Computer Science categories. With over 44,000 citations in Google Scholar, he is the second most highly cited researcher in the area of artificial intelligence (according to Microsoft's Academic Search system) and has an h-index of 88 (the second top non-American according to Palsberg). He has received a number of international awards for his research: the Computers and Thought Award (the premier award for a young AI scientist and the first European-based recipient in the Award's 30 year history),  the ACM Autonomous Agents Research Award and an IEE Achievement Medal. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the British Computer Society, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (formerly the IEE), the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB), the German AI Institute (DFKI) and the European Artificial Intelligence Association (ECCAI) and a member of Academia Europaea and the UK Computing Research Committee (UKCRC).

Nick was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, a member of the advisory board of Imperial College's Institute of Security Science and Technology,  and a founding director of the International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. He has also led teams that have won competitions in the areas of: the Iterated Prisoners' Dilemma (the 20th Anniversary competitions in 2004 and 2005), RoboCup Rescue (the Infrastructure competition in 2007), Agent Trust and Reputation (the ART competitions in 2006 and 2007), the Lemonade Stand Game (2009 & 2010), Market Design (the TAC CAT competition in 2007), and technology-mediated social mobilization and rapid information gathering (the TAG Challenge in 2012).

 

Wordle from publications from 2005 onwards

Latest News

Researchers attempt (and win!) an 'impossible challenge'

A group of computer scientists from the UAE, US and UK have won a seemingly impossible worldwide challenge: to track down five ‘suspects’ of a jewel heist in five different cities within 12 hours. Their win redefines the limits of technology-mediated social mobilization and rapid information gathering.


Crowdsourcing experts team up to accelerate cardiac response

Researchers from the University of Southampton will be collaborating with scientists from Masdar Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) to tackle the MyHeartMap Challenge, using social network and crowdsourcing.


ORCHID contends for TechWorld University Excellence title

Researchers from the ORCHID project will present their work on the use of computerised agents for home energy management and disaster responses this week at TechWorld, the UK's leading technology event.


 

         

 

(c) 2009 Nick Jennings | Contact me