TAS-S assembles a cross-disciplinary team of internationally reputed security experts from Lancaster and Cranfield Universities who are based across a wide range of research areas including Distributed Systems, Communications, Controls, AI, Sociology and Law.

Lancaster University

Prof Neeraj Suri (Cyber Security), Project PI
Prof. Suri holds the Distinguished Professorship and Chair in Cybersecurity, and co-directs the university-wide Security Institute. His research spans the design, analysis and assessment of trustworthy cloud systems and software. Email

Prof. Corinne May-Chahal (Sociology)
Prof. May-Chahal is an applied social scientist dedicated to keeping children and adults safe in a digital world. Her focus is on the socio-technical aspects of human security through developing and applying new technologies. Email

Prof. Plamen Angelov (Intelligent Systems)
Prof. Angelov holds a Chair in Intelligent Systems and is the department’s Director of Research. His research interests cover autonomous learning, evolving systems, and explainable by design prototype-based deep learning. Email

Prof. Catherine Easton (Law)
Prof. Easton’s research includes internet governance, intellectual property, access to technology and human/computer interaction. She has also published an analysis on the regulatory and legal landscape of autonomous vehicles. Email

Dr. Joe Deville (Sociology)
Dr. Deville is based jointly in the department of Sociology and the Management School (Organisation, Work and Technology). His research includes disaster preparedness and the production/materialisation of risk. Email

Dr. Yang Lu (Cyber Security)
Dr. Lu’s is based in the Systems Security Group in the School of Computing and Communications. His research is on theoretical foundations and advanced algorithms for secure, safe and intelligent cyber-physical systems. Email

Tetiana Vestel (Project Manager)
Tetiana is responsible for the day-to-day management of the project including the organisation of meetings and events, financial monitoring and reporting, and supporting the dissemination of public outputs. Email

Dr. Zhengxin Yu, (Senior Research Associate)
Dr. Yu received her PhD in Computer Science from the University of Exeter. Her research interests focus on federated learning, deep learning, multi-access Edge Computing and the Internet of Things. Email

Dr. Andrew Sogokon (Senior Research Fellow).
Dr. Sogokon completed his PhD at the University of Edinburgh. His research is in the area of cyber-physical systems, particularly formal modelling and verification of so-called hybrid systems. His research interests include non-linear ODEs, formal verification, optimisation, autonomous systems, data-driven control and rigorous analysis of modern control systems. Email

Dr. Yi Li (Senior Research Associate).

Dr. Li received his B.Sc. degree in 2017, from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, and M.Sc degree in 2018 from Newcastle University. His PhD thesis is on “Deep learning-based methods for monaural speech enhancement”. Email

Dr. Luke Moffat (Senior Research Associate)
Dr. Moffat completed his PhD in Philosophy at the University of Kent. His research intersects the ethics of technology, nature-philosophy and more-than-human perspectives. He currently works with Mobilities Research as well as Ethical, Legal and Social Issues (ELSI) of Autonomous Systems. Email

Xavier Hickman (PhD Candidate)
Xavier is currently undertaking his PhD in the field of interpretable deep learning. His research interests also include evidence based logic, explainable AI, distributed systems and multi-modality data fusion for deep learning. Email

Alvaro Lopez Pellicer (PhD Candidate)
Alvaro graduated in computer science from Lancaster University. He has been researching human hand interrogation, deep learning methodologies and classification techniques. His research is currently focused on autonomous learning, evolving systems, and explainable deep learning. Email

Juliana Michelon Alvarenga (affiliated PhD Candidate)
Juliana is currently undertaking her PhD in Sociology with a research focus on posthumanism and modern systems theory as a theoretical framework for investigating distributed cognition in human-machine systems. Email

Ovini Gunasekera (affiliated PhD Candidate)
Ovini is currently undertaking her PhD in compositional specification and verification of security properties in Cyber-Physical Systems. Her research interests include formal specification and modelling, formal verification, Emergent behaviour and properties, Airborne Collision Avoidance System (ACAS). Email

Cranfield University

Prof. Weisi Guo (Machine Intelligence)
Prof. Guo is the Director of the Smart Living Grand Challenge and the Head of the Applied AI Group. His research designs data-driven solutions for socio-cyber-physical ecosystems and how these can be designed for challenging environments or tasks, whilst integrating human domain knowledge. Email

Prof. Gokhan Inalhan (Autonomous Systems)
Prof. Inalhan’s research covers the design, modelling, GNC, resilience, and security aspects of autonomy and AI for air, defence, transportation and space systems, as well as explainable AI for trustworthy autonomous systems. Email

Prof. Antonios Tsourdos (Autonomous Systems)
Prof. Tsourdos is the Head of the Autonomous and Cyber-Physical Systems Centre. His research into autonomous vehicles includes guidance, control, navigation, mission planning, and decision making. He also researches cyber-physical systems. Email

Dr. Lisa Dorn (Behavioural Science)
Dr. Dorn is an Associate Professor of Driver Behaviour and Director of the Driving Research Group. Her main interests are the design and evaluation of interventions to improve driver safety. Email

Dr. Yun Tang (Research Fellow)
Dr. Tung has been working on the safety verification and validation of autonomous vehicles, expanding his research scope toward trustworthy autonomous systems. Email

Emre Saldiran (Research Assistant in Autonomy & AI)
Emre Saldiran is pursuing his Ph.D. in the trustworthiness of autonomous systems at Cranfield University. He is studying the explainability of AI-aided tactics for autonomous vehicles and the resiliency of vision-based autonomous systems. Email

Aykut Cetin (Research Assistant in Autonomous System Design)
Aykut brings over 12 years of aerospace industry expertise, boasting 1,000+ UAV flight hours and a portfolio of 350+ UAV designs. Proficient in rapid prototyping and staying current with industry trends, Aykut offers innovative solutions for research projects. Aykut’s adaptable problem-solving skills make Aykut a valuable asset for UAV research and development endeavours. Email

Ajinkya Lakhepatil (PhD Candidate)
Ajinkya is currently pursuing his PhD in autonomous and trustworthy robotics systems. He completed his Master’s in Data Science from Northwestern University, USA. His areas of interest include human-centred AI, security, and ethics in artificial intelligent systems. Email

Alumni

Dr Zhuangkun Wei (Research Fellow)
Dr. Wei has recently completed his PhD at Warwick University. His research interests include Secure Wireless Communications and Explainable Artificial Intelligence (X-AI) for digital aviation. Email

Dr. Anders af Wåhlberg (Research Fellow)
Dr. af Wåhlberg has an MA and PhD in Psychology and a Bachelor’s degree in History from Uppsala University (Sweden). His main research areas are in driving behaviour (including ecodriving and training) and safety, as well as methodological problems in social science. He is also a specialist on evaluations of interventions and meta-analysis. Email