Dan Cornford

Role

My role at IGI is Software Products Manager in the new IGI offices in Birmingham. This means I am responsible for the range of IGI's software products including p:IGI, ig.NET and the developing geochemistry database product, Metis. At present I work part time in IGI, and am also a Reader in Computer Science at Aston University.

Vision

My vision is to create a set of software tools to support the geochemists' workflow that remove as many of the obstacles as possible that a geochemist faces in their day to day work, making the geochemist's job exciting and rewarding. I am keen to innovate with my interests in probabilistic modelling and data visualisation and exploration, but also interested in listening to our users to see what has the best value for them. Further into the future I am keen to start looking in more depth at probabilistic petroleum systems modelling.

Expertise

My expertise runs across probabilistic modelling, including machine learning, visualisation and data exploration. I have also contributed to developments in data assimilation and inverse problems. In particular I work on managing uncertainty in environmental models, including coordinating the UncertWeb project and collaborating on the Managing Uncertainty in Complex Models project. Further information on my research interests can be found on my university research web site.

Background

I have a BSc in Maths and Meteorology from Reading University (1991), an MSc in Climatology and Applied Meteorology from the University of Birmingham (1992) and a PhD in spatial statistics and climatology from the University of Birmingham (1996). I joined the Neural Computing Research Group at Aston University in 1996 as a postdoctoral research fellow, working on applying machine learning and statistical methods to satellite data assimilation in weather forecasting. In 1999 I was appointed as a Lecturer in Computer Science at Aston University. I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2007 and Reader in 2010. I joined IGI part time in April 2011 as the Software Products Manager. I became a Director of IGI in January 2012.