I am a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. I work in robotics, artificial intelligence, decision theory and machine learning.
I obtained my PhD in intelligent robotics from the Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, under the supervision of Dr Subramanian Ramamoorthy.
My research interests broadly focus on aspects of intelligent robotics, particularly intelligent decision making and learning deep structure in strategies for surviving in non-stationary and adversarial worlds. This includes investigating approaches to automated discovery of novel concepts, through state and action abstraction, as well as representation learning. A major approach taken in my work is transfer learning.
I am most specifically interested in the study of the acquisition of behavioural knowledge in autonomous agents. I am also very interested in the application of my research to real world problems, particularly in trying to improve the lives of people in Africa in the spheres of education and healthcare.