Biography

Research interests: Simon is a computer scientist with interests in Artificial Intelligence who works at the nexus of Argumentative Dialogue, Behaviour Change, and Interaction Design. His research is concerned with formal models of reasoning and communication that are based upon argumentation. He has developed theoretical and applied intelligent computational systems that support argumentation between heterogeneous groups of people and machines, and which have been deployed in pure science, educational, social and policy domains.

Career history: Simon began his career at the University of Dundee where he researched a thesis on inter-agent communication using argumentation whilst employed on the EPSRC-funded Information Exchange Project. After his doctoral research Simon stayed in the School of Computing at Dundee until 2011. During this time he lectured across the undergraduate Computer Science curriculum whilst helping establish the nascent Argumentation Research Group. In 2011, Simon joined the Open Microscopy Environment (OME) project and worked on joint research between OME and the Ninewells Hospital Health Informatics Centre. In 2012 Simon joined the School of Computing at the University of Aberdeen where he was on employed on a large EU-funded IP project called SUPERHUB. On SUPERHUB he researched the roles of persuasive technology and behaviour change mechanisms in sustainable transport systems. In 2014 Simon joined the school of computing at Edinburgh Napier as a lecturer.