October had various meaningful moments. One of those moments was the wedding of our dear friends’ son got married, which was not only a beautiful celebration, but also great fun. It was also really nice to be there with our own children, who are very good friends with the groom and his sibling. Another moment was Amirreza Alizamani’s Viva exam. Yet another key moment was my last formal teaching session for the foreseeable future, as I am taking on a new professional challenge.
Research
This was a good month on the research front. Work got started on the Tyche project, which explores the role of AI in crisis management, and the vulnerabilities arising from lack of AI sovereignty. Now that the research assistant has been recruited, and the parameters for the literature search have been defined, we can start reviewing documentation and creating our key output, which is a toolkit for decision makers in crisis management scenarios.
Even better, this same team were short-listed for a grant application to look at cognitive aspects of AI use in crisis management. We now have until early January to develop a full proposal.
We also hosted the AI in Advertising event, which brought together a really interesting mix of researchers and practitioners to explore trust, identity, privacy and security challenges arising from the increasing use of AI in advertising and marketing. Now, we are working on a position paper.
Writing
I thought that October had not been very productive on the writing front but, looking back, it wasn’t that bad. We held the first co-authors meeting for the 3rd edition of the Research Methods book. It is going to hard to coordinate 5 authors on different time zones, but I am actually excited about the fresh perspective that they will bring to the project.
Also very exciting was the news that one paper that had been for review came up with a request for major revisions. There is a lot of work to be done, and there is no guarantee that it will be successful even after the revisions. But there are many things that the editors and reviewers like about the paper, and I am really happy to have a chance at improving what I think could be a very useful paper for society.
Elsewhere, I continued work on a paper due next month, submitted an extended abstract for conference and a proposal for a special interest group, and two co-authored papers were submitted.
Teaching
As I mentioned already, this month was quite meaningful on the teaching front because of Amirreza Alizamani’s successful viva, and my last formal teaching session before I take on a new professional challenge. After one of the teaching sessions earlier in the month, I found myself making mental notes about what to change for the next run of the module… only to remember that I will not be delivering this module, again. As teaching is so much a part of the image and identity of an academic, this was bitter-sweet.
Because of that forthcoming professional change, I also spent some time handing-over the teaching on other modules, and completing various forms.
Service
In the SeNSS role, I planned some future work and handed-over responsibilities. While on a meeting with Rico Isaacs, who is my counter-part on SENSS, we realised that we had crossed paths, professionally, 11 years ago, and that he had been very generous with his advice (at the time I was preparing a grant application, someone put me in contact with him as he had secured funding from that organisation, and he not only shared advice but even shared his application documents which, I can assure you, most people do not do). In the ethics role, there were various reviews, including two complicated ones; plus, shortlisting people for interviews to Chair the Ethics Committee. Moreover, I reviewed two papers.
What did October have in store for you?
