Earth Day
Join us as we celebrate Earth Day with a fascinating research talk. 22 April, 11am - 12 noon
Discover Lectures - Live!
Inspirational presentations by our research staff offering an engaging insight into our diverse research portfolio
Past Events
Radiomics in Personalised Medicine
An introduction to radiomics, a novel imaging method used in the diagnosis of cancer to predict disease outcome, recurrence, progression and response to therapy.
Maths on the Street
Mathematics is often thought of as an abstract discipline with few real-life applications beyond the classroom. In this lecture, Dr Ann Smith guides us through her work on homelessness in the City of Edinburgh.
Digital Biometrics and Online Identity
In this lecture, we reveal how the simple act of typing can be used to authenticate and (to some extent) determine identity, proving that total anonymity behind the keyboard is an illusion
The World of Immersive 3D Audio
Sound plays an important role in making sense of the environment we are surrounded by in our daily lives. This lecture introduces us to how the human brain understands spatial sound and demonstrates some of the latest 3D audio technologies
Engineering for Quality of Life
In this lecture, Engineeer Dr Leigh Fleming shares her experience of working alongside doctors, nurses and scientists to improve outcomes for patients living with chronic wounds.
The Power of Abstraction
'The Power of Abstraction - Using Mathematics to Simplify the Digital World' presented by Dr Qunfen Qi.
Digital Twinning
'Digital Twinning - bridging the real and virtual worlds for maintenance, manufacturing, monitoring and the metaverse', presented by Dr Duke Gledhill
Interactive Visualisation-Future Smart Homes
Improved Decision Making with Interactive Visualisation-Future Smart Homes
Nuclear Waste and a Sustainable Future
'Nuclear Waste and a Sustainable Future – Are They Compatible?' presented by Dr Mir Anamul Haq
A way to future railway system
What is the main characteristic of the future railway system? By leveraging the power of the Internet of Things, every element of the railway system will be monitored and connected with its digital twin.
Maths at Home
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology and automation, mathematics plays a pivotal role in shaping the smart homes and buildings of the future.
International Women's Day
Have you ever wondered how the future public transport services might look? Imagine a world where the public transport is not only more efficient and passenger-friendly but also kinder to our environment...
Radiomics in Personalised Medicine – Beyond What Meets the Eye
Medical images are used extensively in oncology to diagnose and plan treatment, but what if images contain hidden information not visible to the naked eye? What if this information makes a difference in how cancer is treated? In this lecture we introduce radiomics, a novel method that extracts features from medical images in order to predict disease outcome, recurrence, progression and response to therapy in the context of cancer.
About the speaker
Dr Concetta Piazzese is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Huddersfield with extensive experience in medical image processing and algorithm development. Her research focuses on developing and validating new medical image processing techniques to be applied within oncological clinical-decision support systems to improve diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive accuracy.
Digital Biometrics and Online Identity
Not all biometric measurements rely on physical traits such as fingerprint and facial recognition – behavioural biometrics such as keystroke patterns leave an identifiable trail across digital devices such as phones, computers and security panels. In this lecture, we reveal how the simple act of typing can be used to authenticate and (to some extent) determine individual identity, proving that total anonymity behind the keyboard is an illusion.
About the speaker
Dr Simon Parkinson is a Reader (Associate Professor) in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Huddersfield. His research interests are cybersecurity-focused and cover aspects such as access control, vulnerability and anomaly detection. His research is driven to address to global security skills shortage by equipping non-specialist users with software tools to perform expert-equivalent security analysis.
Mathematics on the Street
Can maths help us to understand homelessness? Mathematics is often thought of as an abstract discipline with few real-life applications beyond the classroom. In this lecture, Dr Ann Smith guides us through her work on homelessness in the City of Edinburgh. Ann will illustrate how maths plays a pivotal role in understanding complex societal problems, helping us to formulate effective public policy that has a direct outcome on the health and wellbeing of vulnerable individuals.
About the speaker
Dr Ann Smith is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Huddersfield and a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. Her research interests include evidence-based healthcare diagnostics, mathematics education and e-learning.
Games Discover Lecture - Live!
Digital Twinning - bridging the real and virtual worlds for maintenance, manufacturing, monitoring and the metaverse
Presented by Dr Duke Gledhill
Imagine being able to control a submarine in the Mariana Trench, perform surgical operations in Singapore, monitor manufacturing plants in China, test a new product before it is built or just make your smart house as energy efficient as possible, all from your living room - modern technology is giving digital twinning the necessary means to provide these abilities to everyone through real-time superfast low latency networks and Virtual Reality devices.
Duke Gledhill: Biography
I am always searching for something new to explore so nascent technologies tend to draw my attention. Combine this with an early adopter mentality and a desire to use as much "off-the-shelf" components as possible, and experiments abound. In recent years my focus has been on extended reality technologies and low power IoT/SooC, experimenting with health, digital heritage and digital twinning.
Games Discover Lecture - Live!
Nuclear Waste and a Sustainable Future – Are They Compatible
Join us for this specialist insight into the future of nuclear energy and its place as a future energy source.
There is an urgent need to address the emission of greenhouse gases and switch to greener energy sources to limit global warming and its effects, but does nuclear energy offer the solution? It undoubtedly results in zero/low carbon emissions, but it also leads to the need to manage large stockpiles of highly radioactive wastes including plutonium — an element used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Ideas for waste management have ranged from launching it into outer space to throwing it in the ocean. In this lecture, Dr Mir Anamul Haq, Research Fellow in electron microscopy and materials research at the University of Huddersfield, will take you on a journey to explore nuclear energy and understand the problems of disposing with radioactive waste. We will discuss the research that is being done around the world and here in the UK, so that you can make up your own mind about the future of nuclear energy in our society.
The World of Immersive 3D Audio
"Sound is half the experience" - George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars.
Sound plays such an important role in making sense of the environment we are surrounded by in our daily lives as well as delivering realistic and immersive experiences in games and many other virtual reality applications. Understanding how humans perceive the direction of sound and the impression of space has been researched a lot over the last century. Now, with the advancement of digital audio technology, we can simulate a realistic and natural 3D aural experience over loudspeakers or headphones - the next generation audio formats such as Dolby Atmos and Ambisonics are already being widely used to produce immersive music and film content.
This Discover Lecture will introduce some of the basic principles of how the human brain understands spatial sounds in real life, and how they are exploited in some of the latest 3D audio technologies to provide the listener with a realistic aural experience. This session will be accompanied with 3D audio demos so ensure you listen through headphones.
Sound plays such an important role in making sense of the environment we are surrounded by in our daily lives as well as delivering realistic and immersive experiences in games and many other virtual reality applications. Understanding how humans perceive the direction of sound and the impression of space has been researched a lot over the last century. Now, with the advancement of digital audio technology, we can simulate a realistic and natural 3D aural experience over loudspeakers or headphones - the next generation audio formats such as Dolby Atmos and Ambisonics are already being widely used to produce immersive music and film content.
This Discover Lecture will introduce some of the basic principles of how the human brain understands spatial sounds in real life, and how they are exploited in some of the latest 3D audio technologies to provide the listener with a realistic aural experience. This session will be accompanied with 3D audio demos so ensure you listen through headphones.
Engineering for Quality of Life - in celebration of International Women in Engineering Day
Dr Leigh Fleming’s research focuses on the use of precise measurement techniques and engineering principles to improve quality of life. One area of her work involves the application of specialist engineering knowledge to help people living with chronic wounds. For the individual patient, chronic wound pain can lead to a deterioration in both physical and emotional wellbeing. In addition, the cost of chronic wounds is estimated to be between up to 3% of the total healthcare costs in an industrialised country. For the UK, this amounts to around £5.3 billion. In this lecture, Leigh offers a fascinating insight into her work with doctors, nurses, scientists and engineers to help investigate and improve these hard to heal wounds.
About the speaker
Dr Leigh Fleming is a Reader in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Huddersfield. Leigh originally studied maths, chemistry and physics at A level with a hope of progressing a career in medicine, but her attention turned to Mechanical Design Engineering because of her love of cars and her interest in how things worked. During her undergraduate degree, she realised that she could combine her Engineering skills with her dream of medicine to improve peoples lives and be called Dr too! She went onto complete a PhD in “The Use of 3D Analysis Techniques to Investigate the Wear of Femoral Stems in Total Hip Replacement” before moving into industry and eventually re-joining academia. She has now been been working in the area of applied medical technology for 20 years.
Ada Lovelace Day Lecture
The Power of Abstraction - Using Mathematics to Simplify the Digital World' presented by Dr Qunfen Qi
Being smart comes at a price. A smarter phone is more expensive, but quickly needs upgrading. When your phone goes wrong, rather than fix it, we're often obliged to replace the whole thing, even if the defect is tiny. Now imagine a huge, highly digitalised manufacturing factory, generating, exchanging and processing terabytes of data amongst different machines every second, running 24 hours a day. What do we do when this breaks down? Replace the whole thing? Or just fix a part of it? Do we even need to get involved at all, or can we trust the machines to ‘fix’ themselves?
This Discover Lecture is set to give you a glance into a branch of new research led by Dr Qunfen Qi, who will demonstrate how mathematical modelling can help us design, control and manage complex digital systems in a simple and intelligent way.
About the speaker:
Dr Qunfen Qi is a senior research fellow in the EPSRC future advanced metrology hub at the University of Huddersfield. She is leading a research group which is dedicated to develop a universal semantic language for smart manufacturing. Her research is inherently multidisciplinary, and is situated at the interfaces between mathematics, informatics, manufacturing and measurement science. She has worked for thirteen years in developing foundations and tools to support smart decision-making for product design and inspection, played a major role in introducing abstract mathematics as a foundation.
Discover Lecture - Live!
In celebration of International Women's Day
Improved Decision Making with Interactive Visualisation-Future Smart Homes
Presented by Dr Shamaila Iram
What is smart home technology? Can it help to enhance our comfort level and improve our living standards with minimum expenditures? Can we interact and communicate with our home devices remotely whenever we need? The answer is Yes. For example, imagine a scenario in which you can control the amount of energy you consume in your home, despite the growing severity of energy shortages and the rising cost of life in these modern times. Smart home technology enables us to understand complicated datasets to make better informed future decisions. Interactive visualisation technology enables us to visually communicate with our home devices effectively. They also enable us to learn our own behaviour by visually showing us What, When, and How we interact with our home devices and how we can improve our interaction it in the future.
Dr Shamaila Iram: Biography
Dr Shamaila Iram is Senior Lecturer at University of Huddersfield, School of Computing and Engineering. She is very passionate to explore Smart Homes Technologies and how they could be used to attain smart and sustainable living environment in the houses. She is particularly interested in understanding the complex energy datasets using interactive visualisation platforms. These platforms can help to find interesting hidden patterns in the datasets to take the right future decisions.
Discover Lecture - Live!
In celebration of International Women in Engineering Day
From Raw Data to Actionable Insights: A way to future railway system
Presented by Dr Rawia El Rashidy
What is the main characteristic of the future railway system? Based on my experience in railway research, I firmly believe that digitalization will be the defining characteristic of the future railway system. By leveraging the power of the Internet of Things, every element of the system will be monitored and connected with its digital twin. .This will enable us to quickly detect any abnormal performance and make informed decisions in real-time, improving safety by identifying weak signals and deviations from best practices early on... Digitalization will also empower individuals to measure and review their own performance using personalized data, while helping us identify and address congestion points in the network to facilitate smoother journey planning and minimize delays. . It also will enable us to increase the railway network capacity by decreasing delays.
By enhancing predictive capabilities, we can build and maintain system resilience, improving availability even during disruptive events.
In short, digitalization will revolutionize the future railway system, enabling us to move from raw data to actionable insights that can drive meaningful change and enhance the overall user experience.
Speaker Biography
Dr. Rawia El Rashidy is a highly accomplished Senior Research Fellow with a distinguished career in the field of engineering. She holds a PhD and MSc from the University of Leeds, where she was recognized for her keen intellect and strong work ethic, receiving the golden medal at the 2012 Transport Research Arena Conference in Athens, a special commendation for Outstanding Research at the Women of Achievement Event, University of Leeds, (2013) and the ITS Researcher of the Year award (2012).
Throughout her career, Dr. El Rashidy has made significant contributions to the field of data analytics, with a particular focus on train driver performance and train movement. She has authored and co-authored 19 Q1 academic journals and refereed conference papers, many of which have been highly cited by the academic community, with one article receiving over 105 citations to date (h-index=7).
Beyond her research, Dr. El Rashidy is committed to promoting women's welfare and collaborates closely with the University of Huddersfield to raise awareness of the challenges women may face, especially during menopause, and advocate for policies and practices that support them. This includes championing flexible work arrangements, providing access to healthcare and well-being initiatives, and promoting education and training on menopause-related concerns.
Discover Lecture - Live!
In celebration of Maths Week
Maths at Home
Presented by Dr Frankie Jackson
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology and automation, mathematics plays a pivotal role in shaping the smart homes and buildings of the future. This presentation, delves into the fascinating world of smart homes and explores how mathematics and simulation enable us to understand, optimise, and evolve our living spaces.
Discover Lecture - Live!
In celebration of Earth Day
Biofuels and a Sustainable Future
Presented by Gina Javanbakht
This talk will delve into the pressing issues of our time. In this discussion we will unravel the intricate web of topics surrounding fossil fuels, pollution, and the promising solutions found in biofuels and green energy. We will talk about the adverse impacts of fossil fuels on our environment, shedding light on the pollution and climate change they bring. We will explore the world of clean, renewable energy sources and potential of biofuels and how they can reduce emissions while driving economic growth
Discover Lecture - Live!
In celebration of International Women's Day
Revolutionising On-demand Public Transport Systems
Presented by Dr Rongge Guo
Have you ever wondered how the future public transport services might look? Imagine a world where the public transport is not only more efficient and passenger-friendly but also kinder to our environment. It is a vision that's becoming a reality with the advent of new technologies. This lecture explores how new and innovative technologies can revolutionize On-Demand Public Transport for sustainable urban mobility. Discover their role in addressing environmental challenges and enhancing efficiency, user experience, and overall sustainability in urban transportation.