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Cambridge Forum for Sustainability and the Environment

 

Biography

Professor Stephen Emmott leads an international, inter-disciplinary research programme, centred around Microsoft's Computational Science Laboratory, based in Cambridge. 

He is interested, fundamentally, in gaining a better understanding of nature, from biochemistry to the brain to the biosphere, and in the development of a new framework --new ways of thinking, a new language, new kinds of computational methods, models and tools -- for forming the foundations of a 'new kind' of natural science: a precise, predictive science of complex living systems integrating new theory, models and data. Advancing such a science will, in his view, be fundamental to our ability to address this century's most important and pressing challenges, and equally, will form the foundations of fundamental advances in computing, energy, materials, agriculture and medicine. He is also passionate about producing a new generation of scientists, who can become tomorrow's scientific leaders and discoverers.

Biography

He gained a B.Sc in biological science (Exp.Psych) at the University of York, and a PhD. in computational neuroscience, under Roger Watt, at the Centre for Cognitive & Computational Neuroscience, University of Stirling. He spent three years at AT&T Bell Laboratories in the USA. At the age of 36 he established and led, as Chief Scientist, NCR Corporation's Advanced Research Lab. He took up his current position in 2003 to lead Microsoft’s research in computational science, establishing the Computational Science Laboratory and Research Units of collaborating groups and scientists worldwide.

In 2004 he was appointed to the UK Government’s 10 Year Science & Innovation Strategy Committee. In 2005 he was appointed as scientific advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (to 2010). In 2008 he was appointed to the Finnish Ministerial Science Strategy Committee. In 2009 I was appointed by the UK Science Minister as a Trustee of The National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts. He is a Visiting Professor of Biological Computation at University College London, Visiting Professor of Computational Science at the University of Oxford, and a Dinstinguished Fellow of The National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts.

Head of Computational Science,
Microsoft Research
Professor Stephen  Emmott
Not available for consultancy

Affiliations

Person keywords: 
integrating new theories, models and data to create a precise, predictive science of complex living systems
gaining a better understanding of nature through developing new computational methods, models and tools