The Connected Environments team is a mix of researchers and teachers who practice the connected curricula approach to delivering postgraduate teaching and are an early adopter programme at UCL East.
Andy Hudson-Smith
Andy is Professor of Digital Urban System and can often be found cramming electronics into recycled historic objects. This will be the third MSc programme he has spun up and he knows the ins and outs of how CASA works as he was head of department for 10 years. Andy will be found helping across all modules but in particular those with a unity, modelling and physically prototyping flavour. When not blogging here at Connected Environments you can also read his wider related work over at the digitalurban site.
Duncan Wilson
Duncan is Professor of Connected Environments and usually underestimates the time it will take to build his “little project”. He spent 20 years in industry at Arup and Intel working on industry/academic research projects. Previously an honorary Prof at CASA for a couple of years he finally moved in full time. Duncan will be found helping across all modules but in particular those with an IoT, prototyping and industry flavour.
Steven Gray
Steven is an Professor of Spatial Computation at CASA and is typically found fiddling with shiny new infrastructure we use to get things working in production environments. A proper computer scientist and Google Developer Expert he is the person we reach out to when we need real software engineering. Steven will be found helping run our core infrastructure and modules with a web architecture, prototyping, doing AI related things and creating mobile apps.
Valerio Signorelli
Valerio is lecturer in Connected Environments (Virtual) and when not in VR headset can be found walking the streets of London with a microphone explore the urban soundscape. He trained as an architect and has probably spent an equal amount of his working life in virtually augmented environments and is therefore our VR/AR /MR/Unity guru. Valerio supports prototyping and making across the programme and in particular visualisation activities.
Martin De Jode
Martin is lecturer in Connected Environments (Hardware) and when not making IoT devices in the lab can be found probing old electronics with a multimeter and generally working out how things work. As a computer scientist with a PhD in physics and several years teaching others how connected devices work he is our go to guy for hardware. Martin will be supporting prototyping and making across the programme and in particular hardware hacking activities.
Leah Lovett
Leah is a Senior Research Fellow using digital technologies to tell stories that connect people with each other and their environment. Trained as an artist at the Slade School of Fine Art, she is experienced in collaborative and social arts practices. Leah is Faculty Lead for The Bartlett at UCL East, and she also takes a lead on engagement and outreach activities at CASA.
Simon Gosling
Simon is the CE Lab technician and is responsible for running the Connected Environments lab and supports lab facilities across UCL East. He is an experienced model maker, craft person and prop designer joining us from recent gigs at Apple TV Studios, Lucasfilm, Marvel Entertainment, Netflix – he even brought part of a light sabre he made to the interview. If you want to geek out with him in the pub, ask him about the time he made the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon and met Harrison Ford.
Aude Vuilliomenet
Aude is an EPSRC-funded PhD Student researching the application of IoT systems and edge AI within urban green infrastructures. She uses her passion for electronics and making to explore how data access and data visualisation/physicalization influence the engagement of stakeholders in caring about the natural environment. She is supervised by Prof. Duncan Wilson and Prof. Kate Jones. Prior to her PhD, she worked as an engineer in the vertical farming industry. Don’t hesitate to ask her questions about plants.
Will Markiewicz
Will is a PhD student in Connected Environments. He is interested in finding value in data. Prior to joining CASA, he spent 7 years working on smart factories, and is now working on smart buildings. His PhD research focusses on sustainable digital twins of buildings, working out if they might end up causing datageddon, or bring value to building users and help to reduce society’s carbon footprint.
Dongyi ‘Mandy’ Ma
Mandy is a PhD student in Connected Environments. She finished her MSc Connected Environment in September 2022 and started her PhD at CE lab in October 2022, supervised by Prof. Andy Hudson-Smith and Dr Martin De Jode. Her research focuses on making and building IoT sensor systems to measure and communicate Urban Heat Islands and urban microclimates for input into urban policy and climate planning. Before joining Connected Environments, she worked at China Unicom as a big data R&D engineer and product manager.
Khalid Amin
Khalid is a Research Associate at the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction and is doing a part-time PhD in sustainable construction. He has 12 years of industry experience in the Building Information Modelling (BIM). With gaming as his favourite hobby, he has learned all about the integration between BIM and Unity 3D to develop VR and AR applications.
Yaman Rawas Kalaji
Yaman is a Connected Environments alumnus and currently assists with research focussed on patient flow through medical clinics and environment control strategies to make operating theatres more sustainable. With a background in Computer Engineering and a longstanding passion for IoT, he has previously invented an electromechanical system to make any car self-driving at low-cost. He has also served as a technical lead for start-ups in the fintech and education space.
Sin Man Choi (Abi)
Abi is a PhD student in Connected Environment supervised by Prof Andy Hudson-Smith and Prof Duncan Wilson. She studied a BEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Bath and an MSc in Connected Environment at UCL. Her research focuses on developing a privacy-preserved occupancy monitoring system through utilising IoT sensors, artificial intelligence and edge computing. In her free time, she likes to 3D print tools and decorations.
Jack Shiels
Jack comes from a software engineering and creative background. Having worked in fintech, edtech, animation, and game development, he likes to contribute to projects that require both technical and creative problem solving. Jack has always had a passion for entrepreneurship and started several software development projects in his teen years. After completing his undergraduate degrees, he freelanced as a systems engineer before moving from South Africa to the UK to both study and work. He is also trained in classical guitar and studies Mandarin at the UCL Language Centre.
Alumni
August Weinbren
August manages the Connected Environments Lab and is an alumnus of the first cohort of the Connected Environments MSc. Prior to Connected Environments, he worked as a scientific software engineer at the UK Met Office, where he developed high-performance C++ software to modernise the data assimilation components of the weather prediction workflow. He also has previously developed a novel geostatistical algorithm for the reduction of carbon dioxide satellite data. He is deeply excited about the future of digital fabrication and loves developing software and writing about technology when he gets a chance.
Dhruv Kumar
Dhruv is the Connected Environments technician, here to help out with turning things off and on.
Early disappointment with the architectural profession led Dhruv to start tinkering with coding and simple electronics. After few years of building art installations and functional prototypes, he found himself in Here East doing the same work, only on a bigger scale. Before joining Connected Environments, he worked at Jason Bruges Studio as a Creative Technologist Dhruv is always happy to chat about new ideas and their technical nuances.
Kira Kempińska
Kira is a lecturer in Geospatial Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning. With a machine learning PhD from UCL she is helping define how machine learning and probabilistic inference can be applied on resource constrained devices of the IoT. Kira led on the deep learning for sensor systems modules and supporting industry and entrepreneurship activities.
Fateme Dinmohammadi
Dr Fateme Dinmohammadi (BEng, MSc, PhD, MIET) is a Research Fellow in Real-Time Analytics and Machine Learning at the Centre of Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London (UCL). Prior to joining UCL, she was a Senior Research Fellow in Artificial Intelligent (AI) at School of Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing, Cranfield University, and also a Research Fellow in AI and Robotics at Heriot-Watt University. Dr Dinmohammadi specialises in Predictive Analytics, Data Science, Machine Learning, Big Data Analytics, and 3D image recognition.
Oliver Dawkins
Olly is a Research Assistant who is interested in using digital technologies to understand both the personal perspective and the big picture in cities and other connected environments. Olly specialises in the use of 3D information, urban sensing, real-time data, visualisation technologies and mixed realities to experientially connect the big with the small.
Daniel Rennie
Daniel Rennie is a proper CASA graduate (MSc Spatial Data Science and Visualisation) and supports the Real-Time Analytics research in the lab.
