Cai Wingfield, PhD

I'm a Senior Research Data Scientist at the University of Birmingham

From my position at the Institute for Data and AI (IDAI), I support researchers from across disciplines, facilitating research involving big-data, data-science, statistics or machine-learning (AI) methods.

I'm also AI Colead for the Research Software Group, a role in which I advise on risks, ethical and practical considerations, and best practices for using AI methods in research. This doesn't mean I'm generally a proponent of generative AI or large language models in research. With my position and expertise, I work to affect positive change by shaping policy, and engaging with and informing people who use AI, rather than focussing solely on my own activities.

I have collaborated as a principal contributor with researchers including:

• Chandan Bose, Rachael Stickland and Kamilla Kopec-Harding on using fine-tuned artificial neural networks to assist glaucoma diagnosis from retinal photographs and videos.
• Rachael Stickland, Fabian Spill and Enrico Amico on studying functional connectivity in the ageing brain using the UK Biobank.
• Mike Allaway, Hazel Wilkinson and Kamilla Kopec-Harding on using artificial neural networks to identify and classify printers' ornaments in a database of eighteenth-century manuscripts.
• Kamilla Kopec-Harding, Jiarui Zhou, Niamh Eastwood and Luisa Orsini on a project forecasting predictors of biodiversity loss in British lakes.
• Daniel MacSwayne, Jeremy Pike, Jianbo Jiao and Ole Jensen on using artificial neural-network models of object recognition to map the dynamics of visual information processing in the human brain.

I have also collaborated in a peer-supervisory capacity with researchers including:

• Rachael Stickland, Csilla Várnai, Francesco Maria Esposito and Mark Elliott on a project looking at predicting the onset of Parkinson's disease from smartwatch data.
• Kamilla Kopec-Harding and Christine Sheldon on using large language models to model debate in the European Parliament.
• Jeremy Pike, Sandeep Shirgill and Dylan Owen on a public database of single-molecule-tracking microscopy data.

I am helping to organise an event focused on community building in research data science as a satellite to this year's RSECon in September.

• Research Data Science Service
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• Advanced Research Computing (ARC)
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• University of Birmingham

I'm a visiting scientist at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit

I work with Andrew Thwaites, ChenTianyi Yang, Chao Zhang and Alex Woolgar at the Kymata Lab on computational models of neural processes, with particular foci on visual perception and speech comprehension, in collaboration with UCL, Tsinghua University and the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

• MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit

I was a Senior Postdoctoral Research Associate at Lancaster University

I worked with Louise Connell, Briony Banks, Rens van Hoef and Agata Dymarska on computational models for cognitive science, looking at the role of language and simulation in human cognition.

• Lancaster Department of Psychology

I was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Cambridge

I worked with William Marslen-Wilson, Lorraine K. Tyler and Su Li on computational models for dynamic neural processes supporting human language comprehension, and multivariate neuroimaging methods.

• Centre for Speech, Language and the Brain
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• Cambridge Department of Psychology

I completed my PhD in the mathematical foundations of computation at the University of Bath

I was supervised by John Power and Guy McCusker. My thesis uses topological and category-theoretic methods to formalise a common, but previously informal, diagrammatic argument style in game semantics.

• Mathematical Foundations group
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• Bath Department of Computer Science