Work With Us
Professor
Professor Alex Yakovlev is an international pioneer of low-power asynchronous circuit design and automation, for which he was elected to Fellow of IET in 2015, IEEE in 2016 and RAEng in 2017. He is Professor of Computing Systems Design at the School of Engineering, Newcastle University, where he has been working since 1991. He received DSc from Newcastle University in 2006, and PhD from St. Petersburg Electrical Engineering Institute (Russia) in 1982, both in the field of asynchronous systems. At Newcastle, since 2000 he is Head of the Microsystems Group and Founder of the Asynchronous Systems Lab, with over 60 PhD alumni. His team is well-known for its contributions in designing asynchronous circuits, concurrent systems, Petri nets, metastability and synchronizers. He has published 8 monographs and over 500 papers in top international journals and conferences. He built his expertise in power-proportional computing and design for survivability through a prestigious EPSRC-funded Dream Fellowship in 2011-12, from which he holds international patents. He has chaired several major conferences (e.g. ASYNC, DATE-WS, PATMOS), and has given many invited/keynote talks on related topics. His most recent work is in the fields of electromagnetic computing and circuit design for machine learning based on Tsetlin automata.
My research and my teaching are based on interdisciplinary approaches to history as a discipline and to historical evolution as a phenomenon. My interests lie in historical consciousness, the use of history, the dimensions of historical time and the interactions between them, the use of games to study the past, and the study of innovation as a mode of historical existence and evolution.
I have given courses in Historical consciousness; Understanding historical time and the use of history; Games and gaming as historical sources to study the past; Ancient Greek history; Byzantine history and culture; Relationships between Byzantium and Scandinavia.
My current research focuses on: (a) Historical consciousness; (b) The multi-dimensionality of historical time; (c) Analysing the international refugee crisis in historical and temporal terms and by using computational modelling; (d) Studying innovation as a historical phenomenon by employing theories on historical temporalities and studying historical development in terms of innovation.
I am also interested in the use of modelling, 3D-design and AI in studying and teaching history.
Project with prof. Turgay Celik and prof. Christian Omlin:
Chat GPT in History Teaching – Digital History Lab (uia.no)
t: 47 38 14 10 98
Professor
Athanasios V. Vasilakos is with CAIR, UiA, and his main research interests include IoTs/mobile nets, artificial intelligence/machine learning, cybersecurity, and big data analytics. He has more than 44 000 citations, H-index=113. He served or is serving as an Editor for many technical journals, such as the IEEE Transactions On Network And Service Management, IEEE Transactions On Cloud Computing, IEEE Transactions On Information Forensics And Security, IEEE Transactions On Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions On Services Computing, IEEE Transactions On Nanobioscience, IEEE Transactions On Information Technology In Biomedicine, ACM Transactions On Autonomous And Adaptive Systems, and IEEE Journal On Selected Areas In Communications. He was also General Chair of the European Alliances for Innovation.
e: thanos.vasilakos@uia.no
t: +47 37233165
t: +47 94817380
Assistant professor
Arne Wiklund received his M.Sc. degree from University of Agder, Norway, in 2003. He has 14 years’ experience from the industry. From 2004-2014 he worked within the upstream Oil and Gas industry, with software for real-time data aggregation and visualization solutions. He has been a member of the technical special interest group of the O&G standards WITSML, and PRODML.
Arne has long experience in large software development project and has led many successfully software projects. Arne is currently head of bachelor program, computer engineering at UiA, and is involved with Big Data, software architecture, and analytics, both internally and externally.
t: +47 37233424
Researcher
Dr. Bernt Viggo Matheussen is manager for Agder Energi Kraftforvaltning technology and development group. Dr. Matheussen received his PhD from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2004. His research interests include hydrological modelling, hydropower scheduling and optimization, neural networks, Bayesian networks, and industrial applications of various types of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques.
e: Bernt.Viggo.Matheussen@ae.no
Chancellor’s Professor
Dr. John Oommen was born in Coonoor, India on September 9, 1953. He obtained his B.Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India in 1975. He obtained his M.E. from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India in 1977. He then went on for his M.S. and Ph. D. which he obtained from Purdue University, in West Lafayettte, Indiana in 1979 and 1982 respectively. He joined the School of Computer Science at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, in the 1981-82 academic year. He is still at Carleton and holds the rank of a Full Professor. Since July 2006, he has been awarded the honorary rank of Chancellor’s Professor, which is a lifetime award from Carleton University. His research interests include Automata Learning, Adaptive Data Structures, Statistical and Syntactic Pattern Recognition, Stochastic Algorithms and Partitioning Algorithms. He is the author of more than 440 refereed journal and conference publications, and is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the IAPR. Dr. Oommen has also served on the Editorial Board of the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, and Pattern Recognition.
Researcher
Chris has more than fifteen years of experience in computational science, software engineering, machine learning, and project management. He has been working as a tech lead and engineer in machine learning for large defense, pharma, industrial, and fintech projects throughout Switzerland and the US Beginning his career as a computational engineer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, he is now the Head of AI & Real-time Analytics for PwC Switzerland where he has built with his team full-stack solutions for detecting market manipulation and insider trading on the Swiss Stock Exchange and for optimizing drug candidate portfolios for large pharma companies. Chris frequently designs and employs Tsetlin machine architectures for his work and has a primary focus on real-time learning with closed-form expressions for interpretability.
Deputy director and professor
Prof. Morten Goodwin is the Co-founder and Deputy Director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (CAIR) and heads the applied AI group at the University of Agder, Norway. He also holds the position of Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the same university and has a secondary professorship at OsloMet. Recognized as one of Norway’s leading experts in artificial intelligence, Goodwin wears multiple hats: professor, educator, public speaker, author, and CSO. With over 15 years in academia, a Ph.D., and over 200 peer-reviewed papers, his primary research revolves around deep neural networks. In 2023, he was honored with the NORA Award for his significant contributions to the AI community, education, and outreach. Khrono also listed him among the 300 most published researchers in Norway. Goodwin’s research projects span fundamental and applied AI, touching areas like agriculture, aquaculture, cultural production, education, health, industrial optimization, natural language processing, and recommendation systems. A fervent communicator, he gives roughly 100 popular science presentations, radio talks, and TV appearances yearly. Additionally, he co-founded and is chief scientific officer of AI experts.
Current externally funded projects under his leadership or where he holds a significant role include:
- Norwegian AI Cloud (INFRASTRUKTUR, 316438, Total budget: 80 MNOK): Development of a state-of-the-art Norwegian AI cloud for advanced AI training.
- KartAI (BIA, NFR nr. 341319, Total budget: 7 MNOK)
- AI for Multiformat Universe (IPN, 332274, Total budget: 13.0 MNOK): AI applications for enhancing customer understanding in the entertainment industry.
- Fjong (BIA, NFR nr. 309977, Total budget: 23.4 MNOK): Automation of areal information planning and building permits.
- KORNMO (BIA, 309876, Total budget: 7.4 MNOK): Optimization of grain production using satellite and agricultural data.
- CoastVision (MARIN, 325862, Total budget: 12.2 MNOK): Machine vision applied to coastal imagery and video.
- CreateView (BIA, 309784, Total budget: 6 MNOK): Visual analytics for sizing and disease detection in fish.
- Seven(7) Industrial and Public PhDs (each total budget: 4MNOK).
e: morten.goodwin@uia.no
t: +47 37233105
t: +47 95248679
http://mortengoodwin.net
Professor
Christian Omlin joined CAIR in September 2018. He has previously taught at the University of South Africa, University of the Witwatersrand, Middle East Technical University, University of the South Pacific, University of the Western Cape and Stellenbosch University. Much of his research focuses on architectures, learning algorithms, hybrid systems and knowledge representation in neural networks for time series classification with applications to human-computer interaction (e.g., sign language interpretation), security (e.g., network intrusion and fraud detection), safety (e.g., prediction of rock falls in mines), astronomy (e.g. variable star classification), bioconservation (e.g., mangrove monitoring with drones), and health care. Beyond his immediate technical interests in artificial intelligence, he is fascinated by deeper questions of (universal) consciousness and being. He received his PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his MEng from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich in 1995 and 1987, respectively.
e: christian.omlin@uia.no
Professor of philosophy
Professor of philosophy at the University of Agder. Einar Duenger Bohn was born (1977) and raised in Vormsund, Norway. He has a BA in psychology and philosophy and an MA in philosophy from the University of Oslo. He got his PhD in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (2009). His current interest in artificial intelligence (and artificial life) is growing exponentially, and very soon it will be the only thing he is interested in. Right now he is obsessed with the question whether it is possible to create artificial consciousness, and what the answer to that question tells us about our own consciousness and moral thinking. He greatly fears the singularity without the systems being conscious and morally aware. Bohn also has a theory of the meaning of life according to which it’s in accordance with the meaning of life to develop as much technology as we can, as long as it’s for the better for all. Bohn considers himself a modest transhumanist.
e: einar.d.bohn@uia.not: +47 38141942
t: +47 91714143
Professor
Frank Reichert is a professor at the Department of Information and Communication Technology, Faculty of Engineering & Science, UiA.
Prof. Frank Reichert has been the rector and chairman of the board of the University of Agder, Norway, from Jan. 1, 2016 to July 31st, 2019. He has been the Dean of the Faculty of a Engineering & Science from 2007 to 2015. He started as a professor in mobile systems at the University of Agder in 2005.
Frank Reichert has been working for over 30 years on technology and strategies for fixed and wireless communication systems both on national and international level.
In 2015 he was the Center Director for the SFI Offshore Mechatronics, a national center of excellence for research driven innovation (budget over 200 MNOK). He was one of the driving forces behind UiA’s Mechatronics Innovation Lab, a national lab for innovation, piloting and technology qualification.
From 1995 he was with Ericsson Sweden, guiding investigations on, e.g., Future Service Layer Architectures, Wireless Internet technologies, and 3G applications and terminals. Assignments included creating and managing European Research projects (e.g. EUREKA Subproject PRO-COM, ACTS OnTheMove).
Frank established Ericsson Cyberlab Singapore in 1999, focusing on user centric, ethnographic application and terminal design, as well as rapid prototyping of new HW/SW products exhibited at fairs like CeBIT 2001 and COMDEX (e.g. Ericsson Cordless WebScreen, Delphipad, Nanorouter).
He has been working as an expert, evaluator and auditor for the European Commission in industrial R&D frameworks such as RACE, ACTS, 5FP, 6FP, and Celtic Calls 1-3.
Dr. Reichert holds a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Aachen University of Technology, Germany.
Professor of theology and philosophy
Professor F. LeRon Shults is director of the “Modeling Religion in Norway” (MODRN) project, which utilizes multi-agent artificial intelligence computational models to study the mechanisms of social change in human societies. Although his early training was in the humanities, when LeRon discovered social simulation technologies he felt like he met the methodology he was separated from at birth. Computer modeling not only allows the integration of multiple theories across a wide variety of disciplines, it also facilitates experimentation with “artificial societies” that can contribute to the understanding and evaluation of policies that are relevant for governments, NGOs, corporations, schools and other institutions.
e: leron.shults@uia.no
ICT advisor and researcher
Besides working at the Technology and eHealth Department in Sørlandet Hospital Trust, Geir Thore Berge is also a staff member of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (CAIR), and a part time research fellow at the Department of Information Systems at the University of Agder. Computers and programming have been a significant passion in his life ever since his mum and dad bought him his first computer at the age of seven. Berge obtained his M.Sc. in 2003. Through the various roles he has held in the healthcare domain since 1997, he has accumulated extensive clinical and technical knowledge. He has been the leader of the clinical systems unit at the hospital, and also the leader of the South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority EHR system administrator management board. Berge has always had a keen interest in the subject of artificial intelligence, and is now actively researching how artifical intelligence technologies can be applied to create better healthcare systems for the benefit of patients. His research interests include eHealth, Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning, Deep Reinforcement Learning, Pattern Recognition, Computational Linguistics, and Information Structuring.
t: +47 38074433
Postdoc
Dr Jeppe Have Rasmussen really got interested in deep learning when he realized it might be a great way to find his favorite animal, the mighty blue whale. Jeppe received his master’s degree in biology and physics from the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) and continued to do his PhD in neural control and biomechanics of sound production in songbirds. After employment at SDU lecturing physiology and animal behavior he moved a bit to the south do his first Postdoc at the Leibniz institute in Rostock, Germany working with animal welfare in the agricultural industry using Kohonen networks. After that he moved a lot to the west to Texas A&M University, USA where he used region based neural networks to detect blue- and fin whale social calls. He has now moved a bit to the north to UIA Grimstad to detect and classify fish calls using state of the art neural networks. His position is a cooperation between Center for Coastal Research (CCR) and CAIR.
e: jeppe.h.rasmussen@uia.no
Postdoc
Jivitesh Sharma is a PhD candidate from New Dehli India. He came to Norway in the middle of winter to pursue an academic career on machine learning and artificial intelligence.
He received his MSc from Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, 2016 and is now focusing on deep neural networks, including recurrent and convolutional networks for emergency response.
e: jivitesh.sharma@uia.no
Professor
Lei Jiao is working at the Department of Information and Communication Technology, University of Agder, as a Professor. He received his BE and ME degrees from Hunan University and Shandong University, China respectively in 2005 and 2008. He received his Ph.D. degree in Information and Communication Technology from University of Agder (UiA), Norway in 2012. His research interests include Tsetlin machine, learning automata, deep learning and their applications in NLP, communication networks, energy systems, and robotic systems. He has over 100 peer reviewed scientific publications. He has supervised 40 Master students and 8 PhD students.
Ongoing Projects: (Founding agent, Project name, Project code, Lei’s role in the project, Project homepage)
- NFR: CaReLearner, Causal Reasoning with Logical Interpretable Learning. Project code: 335700. Workpackag co-leader. Read more
- EU H2020: RHINOCEROS, starting in autumn 2022. Project code: 101069685. Technical contributor.https://www.rhinoceros-project.eu/
- NFR: Cyber-physical Threat Monitoring, Localization and Enforcement in Support of Safety Critical Infrastructure and System Operation. Project code: 332528. Work package leader. Read mroe
- NFR: AI4Citizens: Responsible AI for Citizen Safety in Future Smart Cities. Project code: 320783. Work package leader. Read more
- NFR: Logic-based Artificial Intelligence Everywhere: Tsetlin Machines in Hardware. Project code: 312434. Work package leader. Read more
e: Lei.jiao@uia.no
t: +47 37233428
t: +47 46262243
Professor
Assoc. Prof. Linga Reddy Cenkeramaddi received PhD from the Department of electronics and telecommunications, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway in 2011. He worked for Texas Instruments in mixed signal circuit design before joining the PhD program at NTNU. After finishing PhD, he worked in radiation imaging for atmosphere space interaction monitor (ASIM mission to International Space Station) at University of Bergen, Norway from 2010 to 2012. He did one Master of Science in Physics from IIT Chennai (Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai) and the second Master of Science in Integrated Electronics and Circuits from IIT Delhi (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi).
His main research activities include foundational and applied research to solve cutting edge problems in the research areas of Cyber-Physical systems, Autonomous systems, Robotics and Automation involving advanced sensor systems, Computer vision, Thermal imaging, LiDAR imaging, Radar imaging, wireless sensor networks, smart electronic systems, advanced machine learning techniques, connected autonomous systems including drones/unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), unmanned underwater systems (UUSs), 5G- (and beyond) enabled autonomous vehicles, and Socio-Technical Systems like urban transportation systems, Smart Agriculture and Smart Cities.
He has written more than 60 peer reviewed scientific publications in the area and has supervised more than 50 student projects at the bachelor, master’s and PhD level.
Assistant professor
Dr. Martin Choux received his Ph.D degree in automatic control from the Department of Electrical Engineering at Technical University of Denmark, in 2012. He is now associate professor at the University of Agder in the Mechatronics section. His main research activities include fault diagnosis, nonlinear control, cognitive robotics, and automation, applied on electric drive and electric vehicle battery end-of-life management.
He has over 30 peer reviewed scientific publications and has supervised over 50 student projects at the bachelor, master’s, and PhD level.
Professor
Dr. Noureddine Bouhmala received his PhD thesis from The University of Neuchâtel, department of computer science, Switzerland in 1998. In 2001, He joined the department of computer science at the University College of Southeast Norway (USN), Norway. Today he is working at the department of maritime technology and innovation (USN). Since 2007, he has been affiliated with University of Agder in a 20% position at the department of Information and Communication. His research interests include combinatorial optimization, data mining, algorithms, maritime logistics. Much of his work has been on improving the understanding, design, and performance of large scale optimization algorithms. He is the author of more than 60 refereed journal and conference publications.
t: +47 31009066
Director and professor
Prof. Ole-Christoffer Granmo is the Founding Director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (CAIR), University of Agder, Norway. His passion for artificial intelligence was lit at the age of ten when he got his first computer and discovered programming. Fascinated by the idea of superintelligence, he obtained his master’s degree in 1999 and the PhD degree in 2004, both from the University of Oslo, Norway. In 2018 he created the Tsetlin machine, for which he was awarded the AI researcher of the decade by the Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Consortium (NORA) in 2022. Dr. Granmo has authored more than 180 refereed papers with eight paper awards within machine learning, encompassing learning automata, bandit algorithms, Tsetlin machines, Bayesian reasoning, reinforcement learning, and computational linguistics. He has further coordinated 7+ research projects and graduated 55+ master- and nine PhD students. Dr. Granmo is also a co-founder of NORA. Apart from his academic endeavors, he co-founded the companies Anzyz Technologies AS and Tsense Intelligent Healthcare AS.
e: ole.granmo@uia.no
t: +47 97703120
Associate professor
Dr. Per-Arne Andersen is a distinguished Associate Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity at the University of Agder. His journey commenced as a Computer Technician specializing in Unix-based systems, which paved the way for his academic pursuits. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Agder and furthered his education with a PhD in reinforcement learning methods.
Dr. Andersen’s expertise spans deep learning, reinforcement learning, adaptive learning, and the innovative Tsetlin Machine domain. His collaborations have significantly advanced deep learning applications in safety-critical domains. His leadership in the NRC-funded SecureIoTM project underscores his pivotal role in cybersecurity initiatives.
An entrepreneur at heart, Dr. Andersen co-founded Newbringer and AI Experts, fostering innovation in technology. His role as a Senior AI Advisor at Sørlandet Sykehus extends his influence beyond academia.
Renowned for his eloquence, Dr. Andersen is a sought-after public speaker in AI and cybersecurity, demystifying complex concepts for diverse audiences. He’s currently mentoring seven PhD candidates in areas like cybersecurity, applied AI, and signal processing, reflecting his dedication to nurturing the next generation of scholars.
Dr. Andersen’s tenure as the leader of NOBIM and his extensive public outreach endeavors demonstrate his holistic approach to the AI and cybersecurity field. His multifaceted engagement inspires a culture of informed and responsible interaction with evolving digital landscapes. Through his academic, entrepreneurial, and public outreach efforts, Dr. Andersen is shaping a future where technology is harnessed for the greater good.
e: per.andersen@uia.no
t: +47 90531506
Administrative leader
e: pal.grandal@uia.no
t: +47 91873571
Advicer
e: Randi.l.roest@uia.no
t: +47 37233295
Researcher
Dr. Rebekah Oomen is intrigued by the possibilities of applying machine learning and artificial intelligence to learn more about the ecology, evolution, and behaviour of life in the sea. Rebekah received her master’s and PhD in ecology and evolution at Dalhousie University in Canada, where she studied how Atlantic cod populations are adapted to different environments so that we can understand how they will be impacted by climate change. She is now a researcher at the University of Oslo and the University of Agder with the Centre for Coastal Research and CAIR. Rebekah’s research interests span evolutionary genomics, animal behaviour, and complex systems science, with the ultimate goal of biodiversity conservation. She is investigating the role of cod drumming songs in the mating ritual, using deep learning to unravel distinct voices and dialects within and between cod populations. She also uses AI in her art, involving musicians, composers, and technologists to connect the public to science and nature.
e: rebekah.oomen@uia.no
Senior Engineer
Sigurd Kristian Brinch is responsible for the operation of all the large machines running all of CAIR experiments and simulations. He controls who gets access and to what.
e: sigurd.k.brinch@uia.no
t: +47 37233134
t: +47 91873556
Researcher
Sondre Glimsdal is an adjunct associate professor with a PhD- and master’s degree in ICT from the University of Agder. Sondre was introduced to programming at an early age, and has always been fascinated with the possibility of making computers outperform humans. Sondre is currently a researcher and machine learning specialist at Confirmit AS. There he applies machine learning on anything from natural language processing to various optimization tasks. His research interests include Bayesian methods, optimization, deep learning, intelligent systems and active learning. e: sondre.glimsdal@uia.no
t: +47 37233482
Associate professor and medical doctor
Besides being a staff member of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (CAIR) at the University of Agder, Tor Oddbjørn Tveit is working at Sørlandet Hospital Trust. He is a specialist in anesthesiology and consultant at the Anesthesia and Intensive care Department. He is also medical professional advisor at the Technology and eHealth Department, and research supervisor at the Research and Development Department at the same hospital. He is also associate professor at Faculty of Health and Sports Sciences at the University of Agder.
Tveit became medical doctor (MD) in 1992 at the University of Oslo, Norway, specialist in anesthesiology (anesthesia, intensive care, emergency medicine, pain therapy) in year 2000, and obtained his PhD (clinical medicine) in 2013 at the University of Bergen, Norway.
For years he has been interested in the use of ICT in clinical practice and for research purposes (clinical medicine, medical informatics), and his primary aim is to create healthcare systems which benefits patients.
He has more than 15 years of experience as an advisor for the development, implementation and use of clinical ICT-systems, EHR-solutions and eHealth. This includes major development projects, both at Sørlandet Hospital Trust and in South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority.
His research interest includes perioperative medicine, acute pain, clinical pharmacology, eHealth, artificial intelligence, machine learning, pattern recognition, computational linguistics, and information structuring.
t: +47 38073608
t: +47 97708859
Professor
Turgay Celik received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Warwick, Coventry, U.K., in 2011.,He is currently a Professor in digital transformation and the Director of the Wits Institute of Data Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interests include computer vision, (explainable) artificial intelligence, (health) data science, data-driven optimal control, and remote sensing. He is an Associate Editor of BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, IET ELL, IEEE A ccess, IEEE J ournal of S elected T opics in A pplied E arth O bservations and R emote S ensing (IEEE JSTARS), and SIVP (Springer).
e: turgay.celik@uia.no
t: 37 23 33 35
t: 417 88 312
Professor
Vladimir Zadorozhny (www.pitt.edu/~viz) is a Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information. He is also a Core Faculty Member at the University of Pittsburgh Biomedical Informatics Training Program and Adjunct Professor at Faculty of Engineering and Science of the University of Agder. He received his Ph.D. in 1993 from the Institute for Problems of Informatics, Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Before coming to USA he was a Principal Research Scientist in the Institute of System Programming, Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 1998 he worked as a Research Associate in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at College Park. He joined University of Pittsburgh in 2001. His research interests include information integration, data fusion, complex adaptive systems and crowdsourcing, query optimization in resource-constrained distributed environments, sensor data management, and scalable architectures for wide-area environments with heterogeneous information servers. His research has been supported by NSF, EU and Norwegian Research Council. Vladimir is a recipient of Fulbright Scholarship for 2014-2015. He has received several best paper awards and has chaired and served on program committees of multiple Database and Distributed Computing Conferences and Workshops. His specific interests within CAIR are related to application of scalable data fusion methods to enable efficient data mining and machine learning in complex domains, such as large-scale monitoring of social dynamics and reliability assessment in biomedical data.
Researcher
Xuan Zhang received her PhD degree in Information and Communication Technology from the University of Agder (UiA) in 2015. She has a Master’s degree in Signal and Information Processing and a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Information Engineering. She is now a senior researcher in Norwegian Research Center (NORCE). At the same time, she is a scientific researcher at Centre of Artificial Intelligence Research (CAIR) in UiA. She is currently serving as a Board Member of Norwegian Association for Image Processing and Machine Learning.
PhD Candidates
Postdoc
Dr. Aditya Gupta is a Postdoc fellow in CAIR, University of Agder, Grimstad Norway. He has completed his Ph.D. (2019) from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India in the field of Smart Water Management. He has completed his M.Tech from the College of Engineering Pune in the year 2014. His areas of work are Image and Signal Processing, Smart water systems, Deep Learning, and Machine Learning.
e: aditya.gupta@uia.no
https://sites.google.com/site/adityagupta2590/home
PhD Candidate
Ahmed received his BSc degree in computer science in 2006 from Egypt where he started his journey into the field he always loved. After that, he had more than 8 years of experience in software technology. His domains experiences varied from sales and distribution, financial services, industrial automation, and educational technology. However, his passion for intelligent systems and the theory behind them has always motivated him to think about taking more theoretical steps in computer science. He received his MSc degree in computer science from Eötvös Loránd University in 2017 in Hungary, and he graduated as one of the topmost of his class.
Ahmed started his PhD in ICT at UiA on 2018. His research interests include artificial neural networks, natural language processing, text mining, and adaptive learning.
PhD Candidate
Ajay comes from a technology background with diverse interests. He studied his Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics and Communication) at Manipal University, India. He then worked for a few years in the IT industry before completing his master’s in computer science at the National University of Singapore. Specializing in AI, he worked on research projects ranging from affective computing, human robot interaction and natural language processing. During these projects, he developed a proclivity towards philosophy and cognitive science, and as a result he is pursuing his Ph.D. with CAIR to work on projects related to artificial morality (machine ethics).
e: ajay.vishwanath@uia.no
PhD Candidate
I am currently a PhD candidate at the University of Agder ( UiA ). I work under the supervision of Professor Ole-Christoffer Granmo as part of the Center for Artificial Intelligence Research ( CAIR ). I received an MSc in Information and Communication from Chosun University, South Korea. My research is focused primarily on applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning in indoor navigation and chatbots. Specifically, I am working with the CAIR team to design a chatbot models using the Tsetlin Machine.
e: bimal.bhattarai@uia.no
PhD Candidate
Charl was granted a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Agder (UiA) in 2023. His research is in the field of responsible AI which he believes is crucial for fostering trust in AI. Among the imperatives of responsible AI – explainability, fairness, privacy, and accountability –, his research focuses on explainability, specifically within reinforcement learning. Charl is best known for the discovery of affinity-based reinforcement learning (ab-RL), which is a new paradigm for agent interpretability.
e: charl.maree@sr-bank.no
PhD Candidate
Since early youth, Daniel has had an interest in how the world works. He began his academic journey studying physics at the RWTH Aachen University, finishing with a MSc in condensed matter physics. During his Master’s studies, he was introduced to the fields of computational- and theoretical neuroscience at the Jülich Research Centre. There, he had his first encounters with the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Since then, his fascination with AI has only been growing. His interests lie in the areas of learning, inference, and dynamics of neural networks as well as the application and development of novel learning algorithms. His current research is focusing on deep learning, NLP, and chatbots.
e: daniel.biermann@uia.no
t: +47 37233109
Former PhD Candidate
Darshana is a PhD research fellow at the University of Agder. He completed his BSc in Mechatronics Engineering at AIT university, Thailand in 2015. Then he directly joined to the Big Data research group at Thammasat University, Thailand for his MSc studies and graduated in 2017. His research interests are in Artificial Neural Networks, Data Mining, Optimization, and Operations Research. Currently, at CAIR, he is working on a project which develops a global grid that facilitates real-time compilation, management and analysis of spatio-temporal data.
e: darshana@alumni.ait.asia
PhD Candidate
Elisabeth was born in Tromsø (1974) and raised in Arendal, Norway.
She has a BA in arts and Nordic litterature and an MA in Western literature from the University of Oslo (2000). She has spent her professional life within the insurance-, banking-, and travel industry where she for the most part has been working with digitalization, digital sales, marketing and communication.
Today she is a PhD-candidate in philosophy at the University of Agder and with Sparebanken Sør.
Her area of research includes ethical aspects in the use of AI in the banking industry.
e: elisabeth.asser@gmail.com
Henrik Brådland is pursuing an Industrial PhD at Norkart in cooperation with the University of Agder. He holds an MSc in ICT and a BSc in Mechatronics from UiA, where he graduated in 2021. Prior to starting his PhD, he worked as a machine learning engineer where he developed computer vision solutions for the offshore industry.
His PhD project focuses on tackling problems related to building permit applications—a process that is both time-consuming and resource-intensive. The research examines how large language models and large multi-modal models can be applied to analysis and reasoning tasks within this context.
email: henrik.bradland@norkart.no
Former PhD Candidate
Jahn Thomas Fidje is an Industrial PhD candidate at the University of Agder and with Bilagos. He obtained obtained his BSc in computer networks and security, and his MSc in ICT with specialization in Artificial Intelligence from Agder.
His area of research concerns the application of Artificial Intelligence within the field of finance, focusing on Deep Neural Networks applied to accounting.
e: jtfidje@gmail.com
Research Librarian
Jimi Thaule is a research librarian affiliated with CAIR as an embedded librarian. He has a BA in library science and MA in contemporary history, and has worked mostly with bibliometrics, publication support, research support and source criticism. He is a proponent of open science, and the importance of information rights as a basic human right.
PhD Candidate
Audun Borgersen is a PHD candidate at the University of Agder and with Fjong. He obtained his BSc in software engineering in 2018 and his MSc in machine learning in 2020 at UiA.
He is currently working in collaboration with Fjong to make the concept of clothes rental more palatable to the average consumer. His current primary interests lies in image generation and recommendation systems.
e: karl.audun.borgersen@uia.no
PhD Candidate
Manuel is a PhD Research Fellow at the University of Agder. Hailing from Kerala, India, he received his bachelor’s in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the Mahatma Gandhi University in India.
Finding the academic career enticing, he pursued his first master’s degree by research in systems engineering from the University of Brunei Darussalam (UBD). During his research, he was attached to the UBD|IBM Centre, which was an industry-academia collaboration between UBD and the International Business Machines (IBM). His area of research was the application of AI in power system management.
He joined the University of Agder in 2019 as a master’s student in Renewable Energy and undertook his thesis on the applications of AI in renewable energy integrated systems.
Currently, he is a research fellow in the collaborative project AIMWind (Analytics for asset Integrity Management of Windfarms) between the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Mechatronics Group at UiA. His focus is on machine learning and analytics for windfarm life extension.
PhD Candidate
Magnus Stavik Rønning is a PhD candidate in philosophy at the University of Agder. He received his MA in philosophy from the University of Oslo in 2008, before studying mathematics and working as a teacher. His main research interest is in understanding how artificial minds can be legitimate moral agents. More broadly, he is interested in whether artificial systems can have mental properties and how this would impact human society and our understanding of ourselves. Other research topics include ethics, logic, mathematics, metaphysics and the philosophy of language.
e: magnus.roenning@uia.no
t: +47 92016602
PhD Candidate
Martin Holen is a PhD candidate (Integrated PhD candidate), who took to computers from an early age.
He took his BSc at UiA in 2016, his research interests are image recognition, and reinforcement learning.
And is working on self-driving cars in simulated environments
e: martinholen@gmail.com
Former PhD Candidate
Growing up in Sousse, Tunisia I never missed an opportunity to play a game with my amateur local team. Later, I found academia, and I took a bachelor degree in ICT from the high school of communication of Tunisia in 2011. and obtained my master degree from the university of Agder in 2013. Now, I am a Ph.D. research fellow at the university of Agder. My research focuses on using artificial intelligence and machine leaning techniques on social media to identify and extract crisis related information. In addition, I am active in several research projects including CAIR, CIEM, smart rescue, and iTRACK. My field of expertise includes data mining, machine learning, deep learning, and optimization.
e: mehdi.ben.lazreg@uia.no
t: +47 95010889
PhD Candidate
Michael obtained a first-class BEng degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Bangor University (Wales) in 2018. He was awarded the Data Lab scholarship (Scotland’s Innovation Centre for AI), and in 2020 he received an MSc degree with distinction in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Aberdeen (Scotland).
During the summer of 2017, he worked as a control systems intern for Zeeko Ltd at National Facility for Ultra-Precision surfaces (UK), where he was involved in developing an automated system for optics manufactury. Since 2020 he is involved with the Ultra-Precision Surfaces research group based at the University of Huddersfield (England), where he is responsible for the process automation, prototyping and software implementation for the Swing Arm Profilometer project.
His current research focuses on the application of machine learning for ultra-precision process control and optimization. He is particularly interested in AI and ML applied to the engineering and manufacturing sectors as well as concepts such as Industry 4.0, cyber-physical systems, automation and digitalisation.
e: michal.darowski@uia.no
PhD Candidate
Micheal has over six years of experience as a developer, researcher, and tester. He received a master’s degree in information and communication technology with a particular focus on artificial intelligence at the University of Agder. During the master’s degree, Micheal worked in various machine learning projects.
His research areas include implementation of machine learning in health sector.
Micheal has worked in research, web application development, management, integration, support, and testing in ICT projects, mainly in the health sector. His strengths are his technical versatility, customer focus, and his ability to be solution-oriented. He makes things play out using his versatile toolbox in programming languages / scripts, infrastructure, development, testing, administration, and operations. For the past year, he has been working on web solutions in the e-health sector.
As a front-end developer, he has his expertise in Angular, Javascript / Typescript, HTML-CSS, and bootstrap. As a developer of the machine learning algorithm, he has substantial knowledge in Python, Tensorflow, Keras, Scikit-learn, Probability, Statistics and Data Structures.
PhD Candidate
Morten Grundetjern began his career as an electrician before discovering his passion for software engineering and machine learning. He obtained his BSc in Software Engineering in 2018 and his MSc in Machine Learning in 2020.Morten gained valuable experience working as a consultant on an AI team at Sikri for three years, where he honed his skills and expertise in the field.
Currently, Morten is pursuing his PhD in collaboration with Dyreparken, focusing on an innovative project that aims to utilize AI in creating engaging new content for stories and gaining valuable user insights.As a dedicated researcher and AI enthusiast, Morten is eager to explore the untapped potential of artificial intelligence in various domains, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in this rapidly evolving field.
e: morten.grundetjern@uia.no
PhD Candidate
Mulugeta Weldezgina Asres is a Ph.D. researcher at CAIR, working on Large-Scale Contextual Time-Aware Anomaly Detection Systems for CERN CMS HCAL detector.
He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Computer Engineering at EiT-M, Mekelle University, Ethiopia, with honors of Gold-Medal Award, in 2012 and 2016, respectively. He conducted his Master’s thesis and post-graduate research on machine learning for NILM (Non-intrusive Load Monitoring) of complex systems at Midori Srl, an innovative start-up in energy efficiency incubated in I3P, Italy.
As a former academic member of Mekelle University (2012-2017) and Polytechnic of Turin, Italy, (2018-2020), he researched and developed diverse AI-powered industrial data science and monitoring applications. His research interest revolves around Data Science, Time-Series, Anomaly Detection, Data-Driven Models, Deep Learning, IoT, and Industry 4.0.
PhD Candidate
Rebekka Olsson Omslandseter is a PhD candidate (Integrated PhD candidate). She has always had interests in technology, and has her passion in data science. She took her BSc at UiA in 2017. Her research interests are in learning automatons, classification, mobile radio communications and signal processing. She is currently working on solving mobile radio communications issues through machine learning.
PhD Candidate
Rohan is a PhD research fellow at the University of Agder. He completed his B.E in Electronics and Communication Engineering at Anna University, India in 2015. Then he worked as a Network Operation Engineer at Huawei Technologies from 2015 to 2017. Later he joined to the Wireless and Mobile Communication System Lab at Chosun University, South Korea for his MSc studies and graduated in 2019. His research interests are in Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Indoor Localization and Chatbot. Currently, at CAIR, he is working on a project which develops a Chatbot as a Teaching Assistant using Tsetlin Machine.
e: rohan.k.yadav@uia.no
PhD Candidate
Rupsa is a researcher on applied artificial intelligence, focusing on NLP. She has a Masters degree in Machine Intelligence from DAIICT, India and has 3 years of industrial research experience. She hails from Kolkata and loves travelling, books and Reddit.
e: rupsa.saha@uia.no
PhD Candidate
Saeed started his journey in computer science from high school when he realized his passion in combinatorics and programming. After high school, his fascination with the concept of AI and how human tasks could be delegated to computers inspired him to pursue a degree in computer science. He received his master’s degree in Computer Science from Sharif University of Technology, Iran, in 2012. Ever since, he was involved in software development, teaching and research, and he also gained some experience in financial markets, entrepreneurship and marketing.
Saeed started his PhD in ICT at UIA on 2018. His research interests include: Machine Learning, Approximation and Randomized Algorithms, Game Theory and Algorithmic Game Theory.
e: saeed.r.gorji@uia.no
PhD Candidate
Sander Jyhne is a public Ph.D. candidate at the University of Agder (UiA). He obtained a BSc in software engineering in 2020 and finished his MSc in artificial intelligence in 2022 at UiA.
He is currently pursuing a public Ph.D. for Kartverket, where they aim to automate geospatial 3-dimensional reconstruction of buildings using aerial images. The primary interest within the field of artificial intelligence lies in computer vision.
e: sander.jyhne@kartverket.no
PhD Candidate
Svein Anders is a PhD research fellow at the University of Agder. He completed his MSc degree in Electrical Engineering at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 1991. From 1992 to 1996 he worked as research scientist at SI (Senter for Industriforskning) and SINTEF within the field of mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs).
He was co-founder of Chipcon, a leading global supplier of low-power radio frequency ICs and radio protocols. Chipcon was acquired by Texas Instruments in 2006. The latest years he has worked with technology companies mainly through board member positions. He has a broad range of technology interests, including IC design, radio communications and machine learning. Currently, at CAIR, he is working on low-power hardware implementations of machine learning systems based on the Tsetlin Machine.
Former PhD Candidate
Through studying and working with energy efficiency in buildings for the last decade, Sven Opalic has been trying to find tools that would allow large scale implementation of energy efficiency measures in buildings. To achieve this he believes the key lies within the optimization of energy efficient building management through intelligent building automation. This is very time consuming work for humans, but could potentially be solved much more efficiently through the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Sven completed his BSc in energy technology in 2009, followed by a MSc in technology management in 2011. He is now an Industrial PhD candidate at the University of Agder backed by Login Eiendom and his employer Evotek.
His area of research is prediction and optimization of energy use and storage in technically complex buildings with the use of Deep Learning techniques.
e: so@evotek.no
t: +47 99590786
PhD Candidate
Touseef is a PhD researcher at University of Agder, Norway. He obtained his B.E degree in computer engineering from Bahria university Islamabad, Pakistan and completed his MS degree in communications and computer networks engineering from Polytechnic university of Turin, Italy.
His current research focuses on deep multimodal learning for descriptive object identification in urban environments. His primary research interests include machine learning, computer vision, deep learning, and their applications.
e: touseef.sadiq@uia.no
PhD Candidate
After starting her education as an accountant, Vera Barstad was introduced to programming in the early 90’s. After a quick change of plans, she completed the Bsc in computers in 1996, working several years in the industry as a programmer, before acquiring her MSC in ICT, specialization in Machine Learning in 2015.
Today she is an Ph.D candidate at the University of Agder.
Her area of research include Deep Learning and General Adversarial Networks.
e: vera.barstad@uia.no
PhD Candidate
Vojtech Halenka is a PhD Research Fellow at the University of Agder. He completed his MSc degree in Embedded Systems and Internet of Things at Newcastle University, UK in 2022, after finishing a 4-year BEng degree from Robotics at University of the West of England, UK. During his BEng he also did one year placement in Czechia as a Robotics Software Developer.
His MSc work on flip-flop-based memory, used as a hardware accelerator for a Tsetlin Machine led to his current PhD project, where he works on an TM based Image recognition.
e: vojtech.halenka@uia.no