I started at KMi in July of 2008, working on the PHAROS project with the MMIS group. The MMIS group researches in the area of Multimedia Information Retrieval and includes video search engines, automated annotation, image databases and interactive multimodal queries. I am now working on the OpenScout project - developing support services for sharing skills, finding and altering open educational resources for business training.

My research applies new methods to interact with multimedia collections by querying with images. I have previously worked with The Open University library to integrate research into content-based video search with the Greenstone Digital Library to index a collection of OU course videos and evaluate the usefulness of query functionalities. I've also been involved in developing the Spot&Search prototype iPhone application to apply some of this research. I have contributed to the SocialLearn project by integrating services to search open educational resources visually (EdMedia Publication).

My research interests include the definition and discovery of multimedia semantics (specifically image annotation), semantic web applications, human-computer interaction and eScience applications.

Prior to moving to KMi, I was a postdoctoral fellow with the EU Network of Excellence MUSCLE (Multimedia Understanding through Semantics, Computation and LEarning) investigating hybrid approaches to semi-automatic semantic annotation of multimedia using machine-learning techniques, semantic inferencing rules and ontologies. I spent the first half of my fellowship at CNR-ISTI in Pisa, Italy and the second half at IBaI in Leipzig, Germany.

I completed my PhD at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia where I worked at the Distributed Systems Technology Centre (DSTC). My thesis was titled "A Semantic Framework for the Management, Analysis and Assimilation of Mixed-media Scientific Data" and described how semantic web technologies could be used to support scientific research by enabling scientists to manage and analyse multimedia data.

Past Projects

• SocialLearn
  Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University (Nov 2010 - Feb 2011)
  Integrating visual search into a platform for online learning through the development and sharing of learning pathways. See blog post discussing the work.
• PHAROS (Platform for searcHing of Audiovisual Resources across Online Spaces)
  Integrated Project under the EU FP6 Framework, IST-2006-045035
  Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University (July 2008 - Feb 2010)
  Building an integrated search platform focusing on multimedia data and developing tools for analysing, annotating and storing both images and video to improve the end-user's search experience.
• MUSCLE (Multimedia Understanding through Semantics, Computation and LEarning)
  CNR-ISTI, Pisa and IBaI, Leipzig (Sep 2006 - Feb 2008)
  Internal Postdoctoral Fellowship
  Hybrid approaches to semi-automatic semantic annotation of multimedia
• DART (Dataset Acquistion, Accessibilty & Annotation e-Research Technologies)
  ITEE Department, University of Queensland (Jan 2006 - Aug 2006)
  Senior Research Assistant
  DA3 module, investigating metadata schema repositories for eScience applications
• FUSION (Fuel cell Understanding through Semantic Inferencing, Ontologies and Nanotechnology)
  DSTC, Brisbane (Feb 2003 - Aug 2006)
  Collaboration with the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, UQ Math's Department and DSTC.
  This project was the basis of my PhD research and involved using semantic web technologies to support fuel cell researchers.
• Automatic Personalisation and Generation of Multimedia Presentations
  CWI, Amsterdam (Aug 2002 - Dec 2002)
  Short project with Multimedia and Human-Computer Interface group
• SPLASH (SMIL Presentation and Lecture Archive SearcH)
  DSTC, Brisbane (Dec 2000 - Jan 2001)
  DSTC Student Summer Vacation Project
  Building and indexing an online distributed SMIL lecture archive

Professional Activities

• Guest editor on forthcoming issue of Advances in Multimedia on Applications of Multimedia Mining
• Developed and presented a tutorial on Multimedia Information Retrieval at JCDL2010.
• Local organisation chair European Conference on Information Retrieval, Milton Keynes 2010.
• Programme Committee for SAMT2008, 2009 & 2010; CIVR2009; CBMI2009; DSMSA2009; MMM2010, 2011, 2012; Dataview'10; Dataview'11; ACM2011; MMEDIA2012
• Reviewer for Engineering Applications of A.I.; Elsevier Intelligent Systems Journal; Journal of Web Semantics; Multimedia Tools and Applications; Journal of Human-Computer Interactions; Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine
• Lecturer at PHAROS Summer School on audio-visual search (June 2009)
• Co-supervisor of PhD students at The Open University
• Member of W3C Incubator Group on Multimedia Semantics (2006/2007)