We are delighted to welcome Alison Pease to the group as a permanent new lecturer.
Alison’s research interests include investigating patterns of reasoning in mathematics and building computational representations of these findings, with the long term goal that human mathematicians regard machines as fellow mathematicians and worthy collaborators in their own right. In particular, she has investigated theories of social interaction between mathematicians, the role of counterexamples, metaphors, conceptual blending, analogical reasoning and representation in mathematics. She also has a long term interest in Computational Creativity and is particularly active on theoretical aspects, helping to develop a rigorous, computationally detailed and plausible account of how creation by software could occur.
She holds an MA in Mathematics and Philosophy, from the University of Aberdeen, and a MSc and PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh. She has held research positions at the University of Edinburgh, Imperial College London and Queen Mary, University of London, and has lectured on Ludic Computing at Imperial College London. She has around 50 peer-reviewed publications, has delivered over 40 conference and invited talks, and has been instrumental in winning three grants, totaling nearly £3m (CP-FP-INFSO 611553, €2.89m: co-author, “Coinvent: Concept Creation Theory”, Oct 2013 – Sept, 2016; e-Science mini-theme proposal, £43,581.50: lead author, December 2010 – June, 2011; EP/F035594/1, £514,047: lead author, “A Cognitive Model of Axiom Formulation and Reformulation with Application to AI and software engineering”, May 2008 – April 2011).
She will be teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate courses on argumentation, as well as a postgraduate course on research methods.
