Sir Nigel Richard Shadbolt (born 9 April 1956) is Principal of

Jesus College, Oxford Jesus College (in full: Jesus College in the University of Oxford of Queen Elizabeth's Foundation) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is in the centre of the city, on a site between Turl Street, Ship ...

,Jesus College, Oxford. Election of Next Principal. 15 July 2014
/ref> and Professorial

Research Fellow A research fellow is an academic research position at a university or a similar research institution, usually for academic staff or faculty members. A research fellow may act either as an independent investigator or under the supervision of a pr ...

in the

Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford The Department of Computer Science is the computer science department of the University of Oxford, England, which is part of the university's Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division. It was founded in 1957 as the Computing Laboratory ...

. He is Chairman of the

Open Data Institute The Open Data Institute (ODI) is a non-profit private company limited by guarantee, based in the United Kingdom. Founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt in 2012, the ODI’s mission is to connect, equip and inspire people around th ...

which he co-founded with

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and a profes ...

. He is also a Visiting Professor in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the

University of Southampton , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

. Shadbolt is an interdisciplinary researcher, policy expert and commentator. His research focuses on understanding how intelligent behaviour is embodied and emerges in humans, machines and, most recently, on the Web, and has made contributions to the fields of

Psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...

, Cognitive science,

Computational neuroscience Computational neuroscience (also known as theoretical neuroscience or mathematical neuroscience) is a branch of neuroscience which employs mathematical models, computer simulations, theoretical analysis and abstractions of the brain to u ...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech rec ...

Computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

and the emerging field of Web science.

Education

Shadbolt was born in London but adopted and raised in the Derbyshire village of

Ashford-in-the-Water Ashford-in-the-Water is a village and civil parish in the Derbyshire Peak District, England. The village is on the River Wye, Derbyshire, River Wye, north-west of Bakewell. It is known for the quarrying of Ashford Black Marble (a form of limesto ...

, living a "bucolic existence" until he went to university. He went to

Lady Manners School Lady Manners School is an English secondary school located in Bakewell, a market town in the Peak District National Park, Derbyshire. It was founded on 20 May 1636 by Grace, Lady Manners, who lived at Haddon Hall, the current home of Lord and ...

, then a

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

. He obtained an

undergraduate degree An undergraduate degree (also called first degree or simply degree) is a colloquial term for an academic degree earned by a person who has completed undergraduate courses. In the United States, it is usually offered at an institution of higher e ...

in philosophy and

psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...

Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is a red brick unive ...

. His

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

degree was received from the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1 ...

. His thesis resulted in a framework for understanding how human dialogue is organised and was supervised by Barry Richards and Henry S. Thompson.

Research and career

Shadbolt's research has been in

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech ...

since the late 1970s working on a broad range of topics; from

natural language understanding Natural-language understanding (NLU) or natural-language interpretation (NLI) is a subtopic of natural-language processing in artificial intelligence that deals with machine reading comprehension. Natural-language understanding is considered an A ...

and

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...

through to

expert systems In artificial intelligence, an expert system is a computer system emulating the decision-making ability of a human expert. Expert systems are designed to solve complex problems by reasoning through bodies of knowledge, represented mainly as if� ...

computational neuroscience Computational neuroscience (also known as theoretical neuroscience or mathematical neuroscience) is a branch of neuroscience which employs mathematical models, computer simulations, theoretical analysis and abstractions of the brain to u ...

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remember ...

through to the semantic web and

linked data In computing, linked data (often capitalized as Linked Data) is structured data which is interlinked with other data so it becomes more useful through semantic queries. It builds upon standard Web technologies such as HTTP, RDF and URIs, but ...

. He also writes on the wider implications of his research. One example is the book he co-authored with Kieron O'Hara that examines privacy and trust in the Digital Age – ''The Spy in the Coffee Machine''. His most recent research is on the topic of

social machine A social machine is an environment comprising humans and technology interacting and producing outputs or action which would not be possible without both parties present. The growth of social machines has been greatly enabled by technologies such ...

s – understanding the emergent problem solving that arises from a combination of humans, computers and data at web scale. The SOCIAM project on social machines is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).UK Government grants awarded to Nigel Shadbolt
via

Research Councils UK Research Councils UK, sometimes known as RCUK, was a non-departmental public body which coordinated science policy in the United Kingdom from 2002 to 2018. It was an umbrella organisation that coordinated the seven separate research councils t ...

In 1983, Shadbolt moved to the

University of Nottingham , mottoeng = A city is built on wisdom , established = 1798 – teacher training college1881 – University College Nottingham1948 – university status , type = Public , chancellor ...

and joined the Department of Psychology. From 2000 to 2015 he was Professor of

in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the

. From 2000 to 2007, he led and directed the Advanced Knowledge Technologies (AKT) Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC). It produced a broad range of Semantic Web research, including how diverse information could be harvested and integrated and how semantics could help computers systems recommend content. In 2006 Shadbolt was elected a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senior ...

(FREng). He is a

Fellow of the British Computer Society Sir Maurice Wilkes served as the first President of BCS in 1957 BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, known as the British Computer Society until 2009, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in inf ...

(FBCS) and was its President in its 50th jubilee year. That same year, Nigel Shadbolt,

, Wendy Hall and Daniel Weitzner, founded the Web Science Research Initiative, to promote the discipline of Web Science and foster research collaboration between the

and

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

. From 2007 to 2011 Shadbolt was Deputy Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the

, from 2011 to 2014 he was Head of the Web and Internet Science Group, the first research group dedicated to the study of Web science and

Internet science Internet science is an interdisciplinary science that examines all aspects of the co-evolution in Internet networks and society. It works in the intersection of and in the gaps among a wide range of disciplines that have had to respond to the impac ...

, within ECS, comprising 140 staff, researchers and PhD students. His Semantic Web research led to the formation of Garlik, offering identity protection services. In 2008, Garlik was awarded Technology Pioneer status by the Davos World Economic Forum and won the UK BT Flagship IT Award.

Experian Experian is an American–Irish multinational data analytics and consumer credit reporting company. Experian collects and aggregates information on over 1 billion people and businesses including 235 million individual U.S. consumers and more ...

acquired Garlik in November 2011. In June 2009 he was appointed together with

as Information Advisor to the UK Government. The two led a team to develop data.gov.uk, a single point of access for UK non-personal Governmental public data. In May 2010 he was appointed by the UK Coalition Government to the

Public Sector Transparency Board The Public Sector Transparency Board was established by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, in June 2010 to drive forward the UK Government's transparency agenda. In November 2015, its functions were taken over by thData Steeri ...

responsible for setting open data standards across the public sector and developing the legal Right to Data. In December 2012, Shadbolt and Tim Berners-Lee formally launched the

. The ODI focuses on incubating and nurturing new businesses wanting to harness open data, training and promoting standards. In 2013, Shadbolt and Tim Berners-Lee joined the board of advisors of tech startup State.com, creating a network of structured opinions on the semantic web. On 1 August 2015 he was appointed Principal of

and a Professorial Research Fellow in the

Appointments

* 2008–present: Director,

Web Science Trust The Web Science Trust (WST) is a UK Charitable Trust with the aim of supporting the global development of Web science. It was originally started in 2006 as a joint effort between MIT and University of Southampton to formalise the social and tec ...

* 2010–2015: Chair of Local Public Data Panel, Dept. of Communities and Local Government. * 2011–2014: Chair of UK Midata programme, BIS, appointed by Minister of State * 2012–2016: UK Health Sector Transparency Board, DHS. * 2013–2015: UK Research Sector Transparency Board, appointed by Minister of State * 2013–2015: UK Information Economy Council, BIS, appointed by Minister of State * 2015–2016: Chair, Shadbolt Review of Computer Science Employability * 2015–2016: UK French Data Task Force, appointed by Chancellor of Exchequer * 2015–present: Member, HMG Digital Advisory Board. Appointed by Minister of State

Awards and honours

* * * * * * * * * 2014: Appointed EPSRC RISE (Recognising Inspirational Scientists and Engineers) Fellow * 2016: Elected first

Jisc Jisc is a United Kingdom not-for-profit company that provides network and IT services and digital resources in support of further and higher education institutions and research as well as not-for-profits and the public sector. History T ...

* 2017: Elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) He was interviewed by

Jim Al-Khalili Jameel Sadik "Jim" Al-Khalili ( ar, جميل صادق الخليلي; born 20 September 1962) is an Iraqi-British theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster. He is professor of theoretical physics and chair in the public engagement in scie ...

on ''

The Life Scientific ''The Life Scientific'' is a BBC Radio 4 science programme, presented by Professor Jim Al-Khalili , in which each episode is dedicated to the biography and work of one living scientist. The programme consists of an interview between Al-Khalili ...

'' on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's ...

in April 2015. In 2016, he delivered the Hinton Lecture of the

, entitled "Engineering the Future of Data".

Personal life

Shadbolt is married to Bev Saunders, a designer, and has two children.

Bibliography

* Shadbolt, Nigel and Hampson, Roger (2018), ''The Digital Ape'',

Scribe Publications Scribe Publications (or simply Scribe) is an independent publishing house founded by Henry Rosenbloom in Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian ...

, London, UK

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shadbolt, Nigel Richard 1956 births Living people Scientists from London Alumni of Newcastle University Alumni of the University of Edinburgh English computer scientists Academics of the University of Nottingham Academics of the University of Southampton Fellows of the British Computer Society Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Knights Bachelor Presidents of the British Computer Society Principals of Jesus College, Oxford Members of the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford Semantic Web people Fellows of the Royal Society