Andrea Soltoggio received a combined BSc and MSc degree in Computer Science in 2004 from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway, and from Politecnico di Milano, Italy. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2009 from the University of Birmingham, UK. He was with the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at EPFL, Lausanne, CH, in 2006 and 2008-2009. He was a visiting researcher at the University of Central Florida, US, in 2009. From 2010 to 2014 he was Technical Coordinator of the FP7 European large-scale integration project AMARSi with the Research Institute for Cognition and Robotics, Bielefeld University, Germany. From 2014 he is a lecturer in computer science and artificial intelligence at 天堂视频.
He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).
See our University press release on the Nature Machine Intelligence paper : “”, March 2024.
See our DARPA ShELL project press release (2021)
See our (2018)
Research areas
My research interests focus on lifelong machine learning, in particular, lifelong reinforcement learning, with also a general focus on related areas such as neural plasticity, models of learning and memory, neuro-robotics, evolutionary computation, artificial life, adaptive behaviour, human-robot interaction, control systems, cognition and intelligence.
For a list of publications, check the or my personal .
Selected publications:
- Soltoggio, A, et al. (2024) , Nature Machine Intelligence, 6(3), pp.251-264, DOI: .
- Nath, S, Peridis, C, Ben-Iwhiwhu, E, Liu, X, Dora, S, Liu, C, Kolouri, S, Soltoggio, A(2023) . In Chandar, S, Pascanu, R, Sedghi, H, Precup, D (ed) Second Conference on Lifelong Learning Agents (CoLLAs 2023); Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Lifelong Learning Agents (CoLLAs 2023), Montreal, Canada, pp.936-960.
- Ben-Iwhiwhu, E, Nath, S, Pilly, P, Kolouri, S, Soltoggio, A (2023) , Transactions on Machine Learning Research, pp.1-23.
- Hu, Y, Soltoggio, A, Lock, R, Carter, S (2018) . Download code from GitHub:
- Skarysz, A., Alkhalifah, Y, Darnley, K, Eddleston, M, Hu, Y, McLaren, DB, Nailon, WH, Salman, D, Sykora, M, Thomas, CLP, Soltoggio, A (2018) Convolutional neural networks for automated targeted analysis of gas-chromatography mass-spectrometry data. In International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. .
- Soltoggio, A, Stanley, K. O., Risi, S. (2018) Born to Learn: the Inspiration, Progress, and Future of Evolved Plastic Neural Networks. Neural Networks Journal (2018) arXiv:
- Andrea Soltoggio (2014) Short-term plasticity as cause-effect hypothesis testing in distal reward learning, Biological Cybernetics, Feb 2015, Vol 109, p75-94, DOI: 10.1007/s00422-014-0628-0
- Soltoggio, A., Bullinaria, A. J., Mattiussi, C., Dürr, P. and Floreano, D. (2008) Evolutionary Advantages of Neuromodulated Plasticity in Dynamic, Reward-based Scenarios. Artificial Life XI: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems.
Funded projects:
- (Wellcome Leap) 2024-2027
- Innovate UK 2023-2025, Knowledge Transfer Partnership. Automated technology for digital record processing, archiving, curation and retrieval for government departments and public sectors.
- Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) 2021, Shared Experience Lifelong Learning
- Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) and US Air Force Research Laboratory, 2018.
- Innovate UK. 2017-2018. Knowledge Transfer Partnership. Deep learning and augmented reality deployment on mobile devices
- EPSRC 2017-2018,
- EPSRC 2016-2017, Robotics and autonomous systems for manufacturing and infrastructure management (EPSRC Institutional Sponsorship) (co-investigator) (EP/N508706/1)
Past projects:
- Technical co-ordinator of the EU FP7 #248311 (2010-2014), approx. 12 PIs, 30+ full-time researchers.
Reviewer for:
- Adaptive Behavior
- AIMS Neuroscience
- Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
- Essays in Biochemistry
- Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience
- Frontiers in Psychology
- IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part A and B
- IEEE Transaction of Cognitive and Developmental Systems
- Information Sciences
- MIT Evolutionary Computation Journal
- MIT Neural Networks Journal
- Nature
- Nature Communication
- Nature Machone Intelligence
- Neural Networks Journal
- Neurocomputing Journal
- Robotics and Autonomous Systems
- Science Magazine
- Soft Computing
Programme Committee (reviewer) of:
- International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR)
- Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO)
- IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Computing
- International Symposium on Bio-Medical Information and Cybernetics
- Hybrid Intelligent Systems Conference
- Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC)
- IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence for Human-Like Intelligence (CIHLI)
- Australasian Conference on Artificial Life and Computational Intelligence
- International Conference on Neural Networks (ICONIP 2011)
- NeurIPS
- CVPR
- Conference on Lifelong Learning Agents (CoLLAs)
- AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
In June 2018, our work Convolutional neural networks for automated targeted analysis of gas-chromatography mass-spectrometry data was reported by the following:
Press coverage
Our Nature Machine Intelligence paper was featured in: The Independent, The Standard, Sci News, TechXplore, MSN.com and 157 other news articles (Altmetric) (March 2024).
LBC Radio: A Collective AI, with Nick Quraishi (23 March 2024).
Shared Experience Lifelong Learning DARPA project featured in: , Europawire, ENS-Newswire, Eurekalert (October 2021).
BBC Radio Leicester: Lifelong Learning Machines: a DARPA project at 天堂视频 University, with Jimmy Carpenter (11 April 2019).
天堂视频 press release: New grant to develop self-learning machines (1 August 2018).
World Economic Forum: Open wide: this AI could soon analyse your breath for disease (12 June 2018).
BBC Radio Leicester: AI can smell illnesses in human breath, with Ady Dayman (19 June 2018).
NVIDIA Developer, News Center: AI Can Smell Illness in Human Breath (27 June 2018).
The Conversation: AI is aquiring a sense of smell that can detect illness (8 June 2018).
News on AI for breathomics by Soltoggio also appeared in: The Independent, Focus.it, Golem.de, Fox News, Reddit, TechExplore, Newsweek, The wire, Business Insider, In-quisitr, Marie Claire, TicBeat, Up Magazine, Business Cloud, Smithsonian Magazine, Johns hopkins School of Public Health, Global Health Now, TechCircle.
Outreach activities
- BBC Radio Leicester, Recent AI developments in language and art. With Ady Dayman (3/3/2023)
- BBC Radio Leicester, AI to make cars and roads safer. With Jimmy Carpenter (27/9/2021)
- BBC Radio Leicester. AI becomes a job recruiter. With Jimmy Carpenter (26/9/2019)
- BBC Radio Leicester. How AI will change our jobs and lifestyle. With Naomi Kent (12/8/2019)
- BBC Radio Leicester. AI spring. With Jimmy Carpenter (11/4/2019)
- BBC Radio Leicester. AI developments in 2019. With Jimmy Carpenter (16/1/2019)
- BBC Radio Leicester. AI in medicine and surgery. With Ed Stagg (12/9/2018)
- BBC Radio Leicester. Robotics and automation: risks and opportunities in the job market. With Ady Dayman (5/2/2018)
- BBC One (East Midlands Today). The potential impact to East Midlands region of AI innovation. With Amy Harris (27/11/2017)
- BBC Radio Leicester. Chatbots and emotional intelligence. With Ady Dayman (24/11/2017)
- BBC Radio Leicester. AI and chatbots. With Jonathan Lampon (9/8/2017)
- Debating Society Paderborn, (10 July 2016)
- NAO robots at the British Science Week, STEM day (March 2016, March 2017, March 2018)
- BBC Radio Leicester. Interview on robotics with NAO robots (14/9/2015)
- STEM Science Taster Day (22/9/2015)
Administrative roles:
- Computer Science Research Coordinator (2024-present)
- Programme Leader (Computer Science, Computer Science and AI, Computer Science and Mathematics) 2018-2023
- 2016-2018 Post Graduate Taught Tutor (MSc thesis coordination)
Teaching
- Advanced Artificial Intelligence Systems (Final year UG) since 2014
- Artificial Intelligence (PGT) since 2014
- Past
- Managing a team project (Part D) 2015-2018
- Team projects (Part B) 2015-2018
- Former institutions (University of Birmingham)
- Research skills (2008)
- Evolutionary Computation
- Neural Computation
- Design and media team
- Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science
Project/thesis supervision (Part C, Part D, MSc): approximately 100 since 2014.
- 2018/19 (selected project titles)
- Trading application with data analysis
- AI controlled autonomous car network
- Machine learning for comparing like-parts of song(s) and creating branches between them
- Deep learning for cryptocurrency market predictions
- Machine learning based natural language processing chatbot
- Deep learning for adaptive control systems
- Convolutional neural networks for image analysis in the biomedical domain
- Classification of environmental sound events
- 2017/18 (project titles)
- Evolution of deep reinforcement learning
- Deep learning for adaptive control systems
- Machine learning in breathomics
- Deep learning for automated cryptocurrency trading
- older projects:
- NAO as a robotic personal fitness instructor for children
- Machine learning for wellbeing analysis
- NAO as a robotic personal fitness instructor
- Learning costumers intentions through social media
- Football match prediction using AI