Hello, I’m
Dr Jordan J. Bird
I am a Researcher.
About Me
Dr Jordan J. Bird is a Research Fellow with the Computational Intelligence and Applications Research Group (CIA) within the Department of Computer Science at Nottingham Trent University. Before that, he studied for a PhD in Human-Robot Interaction at Aston University. Jordan’s research interests include Artificial Intelligence (AI), Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning, Transfer Learning, and Data Augmentation.
Curriculum Vitae
Professional Experience
Apr 2022 – Present
Hourly Paid Lecturer
Nottingham Trent University
In addition to my roles as a Research Fellow and Robotics Lab Lead, I am also an Hourly Paid Lecturer (HPL) at Nottingham Trent University. I supervise MSc Computer Science and MSc Data Science students on carrying out their research project and thesis.
Details on the projects can be found at: https://jordanjamesbird.com/#/teaching-student-supervision
Oct 2021 – Present
Research Fellow and Lab Lead
Nottingham Trent University
As a Research Fellow with the Computational Intelligence and Applications Research Group (CIA), my duties involve conducting and publishing scientific research, exploring opportunities for external research funding, and forming professional relationships with likeminded colleagues within NTU and at other institutions for potential collaboration. In addition, I provide Artificial Intelligence knowledge within a multidisciplinary team towards Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP), and I am also responsible for supervising MSc Computer Science projects.
In April 2022 I was appointed as the lab lead by the Head of Department.
Staff profile: https://www.ntu.ac.uk/staff-profiles/science-technology/jordan-bird
Jul 2018 – Aug 2021
Teaching Assistant
Aston University
Leading distance learning teaching sessions for the Capgemini Degree Apprenticeship Programme while studying for a PhD in Computer Science, I am responsible for the following modules:
- Human Computer Interaction
- Geographic Information Systems
On campus, I am also a Lab Session Lead for the following modules:
- Computer Graphics (Second Year)
- Computational Intelligence (Final Year) – Neural Networks
Jun 2018
Robot Engineer
Aston University
Contract work in preparation for the CompTIA 2018. Developed an app for a Softbank Robotics Pepper robot that would read business cards, detect text, and extract human names in order to greet visitors.
Sep 2017 – May 2018
Teaching Assistant
Aston University
Provided effective and professional teaching support for the following modules:
- Java Programming Foundations
- Computational Reasoning and Communication
Nov 2016 – Nov 2017
Web Developer
The Marketing People
As part of TMP, I was a member of a team whose goal it is to work with clients to create an online presence to gain new business from the internet. This is usually one segment of an entire marketing strategy and campaign built around both brand development and awareness via bespoke e-media and print products.
May 2016 – Sep 2016
EVM Officer
Education & IT
At EdIT, I was an IT Technician who project managed, configured, and finally installed Electronic Visitor Management Systems for schools and businesses across the UK – these were digital interfaces that replaced the traditional pen and paper signing in system. I also worked in web and app development to improve the system, engineering the possibilities of iOS and Android integration.
Jul 2014 – May 2016
Computer Technician
Itex Asset Management
- Diagnostics, repair and refurbishment of computer hardware
- Managing secure data destruction with NATO-Certified technology
- Working as a team to achieve common goals and deadlines
Sep 2014 – Oct 2015
Content Creator
CV Plaza
- Writing job descriptions for large, corporate customers
- Self-edited and published to thousands of Students nationwide
Education
2018 – 2021
Doctor of Philosophy in Artificial Intelligence
Aston University
PhD Awarded
Awarded a scholarship to continue my studies at Aston University as a researcher in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Human-Robot Interaction. In August 2021, I was awarded the PhD in Computer Science.
PhD thesis available here.
2014 – 2018
Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science
Aston University
First Class Degree with Honours.
BSc. Dissertation peer reviewed and published at a popular Artificial Intelligence conference – https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-97982-3
2011 – 2014
A-Levels
Erasmus Darwin Academy Sixth Form
- IT – Distinction*
- Game Development – Distinction*
- Media Studies – A*
2007 – 2011
GCSE
Erasmus Darwin Academy
- ICT – Distinction* (3x A*)
- Science – A*
- Additional Science – A*
- Mathematics – A
- English Language – A
- History – A
- English Literature – B
Publications
ResearchGate Profile Google Scholar Profile
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9858-1231Journal Articles
Fruit Quality and Defect Image Classification with Conditional GAN Data Augmentation
Bird, J. J., Barnes, C. M., Manso, L. J., Ekárt, A., & Faria, D. R. (2022). Fruit quality and defect image classification with conditional GAN data augmentation. Scientia Horticulturae, 293, 110684.
View on ResearchGate View on Elsevier Download PDF
Chatbot Interaction with Artificial Intelligence: Human Data Augmentation with T5 and Language Transformer Ensemble for Text Classification
Bird, J. J., Ekárt, A., & Faria, D. R. (2021). Chatbot Interaction with Artificial Intelligence: human data augmentation with T5 and language transformer ensemble for text classification. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing, 1-16.
View on ResearchGate View on Springer
Synthetic Biological Signals Machine-generated by GPT-2 improve the Classification of EEG and EMG through Data Augmentation
Bird, J. J., Pritchard, M., Fratini, A., Ekárt, A., & Faria, D. R. (2021). Synthetic Biological Signals Machine-generated by GPT-2 improve the Classification of EEG and EMG through Data Augmentation. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 6(2), 3498-3504.
View on ResearchGate View on IEEE Download PDF
A study on CNN image classification of EEG Signals represented in 2D and 3D
Bird, J. J., Faria, D. R., Manso, L. J., Ayrosa, P. P., & Ekart, A. (2021). A study on CNN image classification of EEG signals represented in 2D and 3D. Journal of Neural Engineering, 18(2), 026005.
View on ResearchGate View on IOP Science
British Sign Language Recognition via Late Fusion of Computer Vision and Leap Motion with Transfer Learning to American Sign Language
Bird, J. J., Ekárt, A., & Faria, D. R. (2020). British Sign Language Recognition via Late Fusion of Computer Vision and Leap Motion with Transfer Learning to American Sign Language. Sensors, 20(18), 5151.
View on ResearchGate View on MDPI
Towards AI-based Interactive Game Intervention to Monitor Concentration Levels in Children with Attention Deficit
Faria, D. R., Bird, J. J., Daquana, C., Kobylarz, J., & Ayrosa, P. P. (2020). Towards AI-based Interactive Game Intervention to Monitor Concentration Levels in Children with Attention Deficit. International Journal of Information and Education Technology, 10(9).
View on ResearchGate View on IJIET
Optimisation of phonetic aware speech recognition through multi-objective evolutionary algorithms
Bird, J. J., Wanner, E., Ekárt, A., and Faria, D.R. Optimisation of phonetic aware speech recognition through multi-objective evolutionary algorithms. Expert Systems with Applications, p. 113402, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2020.113402
View on ResearchGate View on Elsevier
Cross-domain MLP and CNN Transfer Learning for Biological Signal Processing: EEG and EMG
Bird, J.J., Kobylarz, J., Faria, D.R., Ekárt, A., Ribeiro, E.P. Cross-domain MLP and CNN Transfer Learning for Biological Signal Processing: EEG and EMG. IEEE ACCESS. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2979074
View on ResearchGate View on IEEE
Thumbs up, thumbs down: non-verbal human-robot interaction through real-time EMG classification via inductive and supervised transductive transfer learning
Kobylarz, J., Bird, J.J., Faria, D.R., Ribeiro, E.P, Ekárt, A.. Thumbs up, thumbs down: non-verbal human-robot interaction through real-time EMG classification via inductive and supervised transductive transfer learning. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12652-020-01852-z
View on ResearchGate View on Springer
On the Effects of Pseudo and Quantum Random Number Generators in Soft Computing
Bird, J. J., Ekárt, A., & Faria, D. R. (2019). On the Effects of Pseudo and Quantum Random Number Generators in Soft Computing. Soft Computing, 2019. Springer, 16 pages, 2019.
View on ResearchGate View on Springer
A Deep Evolutionary Approach to Bioinspired Classifier Optimisation for Brain-Machine Interaction
Bird, J. J., Faria, D. R., Manso, L. J., Ekárt, A., & Buckingham, C. D. (2019). A Deep Evolutionary Approach to Bioinspired Classifier Optimisation for Brain-Machine Interaction. Complexity, 2019. vol. 2019, Article ID 4316548, 14 pages, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/4316548.
Conferences and Proceedings
Electromyography Signal-based Gesture Recognition for Human-Machine Interaction in Real-Time through Model Calibration
Dolopikos, C., Pritchard, M., Bird, J. J., & Faria, D. R. (2021). Electromyography Signal-based Gesture Recognition for Human-Machine Interaction in Real-Time through Model Calibration. Future of Information and Communications Conference (FICC). SAI.
Probabilistic Object Classification using CNN ML-MAP layers
Melotti, G., Premebida, C., Bird, J.J., Faria, D.R. and Gonçalves, N., (2020). Probabilistic Object Classification using CNN ML-MAP layers. The 16th European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV’20). Springer.
Look and Listen: A Multi-modality Late Fusion Approach to Scene Classification for Autonomous Machines
Bird, J. J., Faria, D. R., Premebida, C., Ekárt, A., & Vogiatzis, G. (2020). Look and listen: A multi-modality late fusion approach to scene classification for autonomous machines. In 2020 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (pp. 10380-10385). IEEE.
View on ResearchGate View on IEEE
Overcoming Data Scarcity in Speaker Identification: Dataset Augmentation with Synthetic MFCCs via Character-level RNN
Bird, J. J., Faria, D. R., Premebida, C., Ekart, A., & Ayrosa, P. P. S. (2020). Overcoming Data Scarcity in Speaker Identification: Dataset Augmentation with Synthetic MFCCs via Character-level RNN. The 20th IEEE International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC’2020). IEEE.
View on ResearchGate Download PDF
From Simulation to Reality: CNN Transfer Learning for Scene Classification
Bird, J. J., Faria, D. R., Ayrosa, P. P. S., & Ekart, A. (2020). From Simulation to Reality: CNN Transfer Learning for Scene Classification. 10th International Conference on Intelligent Systems. IEEE.
View on ResearchGate Download PDF
Phoneme Aware Speech Synthesis via Fine Tune Transfer Learning with a Tacotron Spectrogram Prediction Network
Bird, J. J., Ekart, A., & Faria, D. R. (2019). Phoneme Aware Speech Synthesis via Fine Tune Transfer Learning with a Tacotron Spectrogram Prediction Network. 19th Annual UK Workshop on Computational Intelligence (UKCI).
View on ResearchGate
Classification of EEG Signals Based on Image Representation of Statistical Features
Ashford, J., Bird, J. J., Campelo, F., & Faria, D. R. (2019). Classification of EEG Signals Based on Image Representation of Statistical Features. 19th Annual UK Workshop on Computational Intelligence (UKCI).
View on ResearchGate
Accent Classification in Human Speech Biometrics for Native and Non-native English Speakers
Bird, J. J., Wanner, E. F., Ekart, A., & Faria, D. R. (2019). Accent Classification in Human Speech Biometrics for Native and Non-native English Speakers. PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments (PETRA’19).
View on ResearchGate
High Resolution Sentiment Analysis by Ensemble Classification
Bird, J. J., Ekart, A., Buckingham, C, D & Faria, D. R. (2019). High Resolution Sentiment Analysis by Ensemble Classification. SAI Computing Conference 2019.
View on ResearchGate Download PDF
Evolutionary Optimisation of Fully Connected Artificial Neural Network Topology
Bird, J. J., Ekart, A., Buckingham, C, D & Faria, D. R. (2019). Evolutionary Optimisation of Fully Connected Artificial Neural Network Topology. SAI Computing Conference 2019.
View on ResearchGate Download PDF
Mental Emotional Sentiment Classification with an EEG-based Brain-machine Interface
Bird, J. J., Ekart, A., Buckingham, C, D & Faria, D. R. (2019). Mental Emotional Sentiment Classification with an EEG-based Brain-machine Interface. The International Conference on Digital Image & Signal Processing (DISP’19).
View on ResearchGate Download PDF
A Study on Mental State Classification using EEG-based Brain-Machine Interface
Bird, J. J., Manso, L. J., Ribiero, E., P., Ekart, A., & Faria, D. R. (2018). A Study on Mental State Classification using EEG-based Brain-Machine Interface. 9th International Conference on Intelligent Systems. IEEE.
View on ResearchGate Download PDF
Learning from Interaction: An Intelligent Networked based Human-bot and Bot-bot Chatbot System
Bird, J. J., Ekart, A., & Faria, D. R. (2018). Learning from Interaction: An Intelligent Networked based Human-bot and Bot-bot Chatbot System. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing. Springer.
View on ResearchGate Download PDF
A Study on CNN Transfer Learning for Image Classification
Hussain, M., Bird, J. J., & Faria, D. R. (2018). A Study on CNN Transfer Learning for Image Classification. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing. Springer.
View on ResearchGate Download PDF
Preprints
Preprints and early-stage research may not have been peer reviewed yet.
Robotic and Generative Adversarial Attacks in Offline Writer-independent Signature Verification
Bird, J. J. (2022). Robotic and Generative Adversarial Attacks in Offline Writer-independent Signature Verification. arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.07246.
Bird, J. J. (2022). Statistical and Spatio-temporal Hand Gesture Features for Sign Language Recognition using the Leap Motion Sensor. arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.11005.
Improving Customer Service Chatbots with Attention-based Transfer Learning
Bird, J. J. (2021). Improving Customer Service Chatbots with Attention-based Transfer Learning. arXiv preprint arXiv:2111.14621.
Continuation of Famous Art with AI: A Conditional Adversarial Network Inpainting Approach
Bird, J. J. (2021). Continuation of Famous Art with AI: A Conditional Adversarial Network Inpainting Approach. arXiv preprint arXiv:2110.09170.
Fruit Quality and Defect Image Classification with Conditional GAN Data Augmentation
Bird, J. J., Barnes, C. M., Manso, L. J., Ekárt, A., & Faria, D. R. (2021). Fruit Quality and Defect Image Classification with Conditional GAN Data Augmentation. arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.05647.
Bird, J. J., Ekart, A., & Faria, D. R. (2020). British Sign Language Recognition via Late Fusion of Computer Vision and Leap Motion with Transfer Learning to American Sign Language. Preprints 2020, 2020080209 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202008.0209.v1)
Bird, J. J., Faria, D. R., Premebida, C., Ekárt, A., & Vogiatzis, G. (2020). Look and Listen: A Multi-modality Late Fusion Approach to Scene Classification for Autonomous Machines. arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.10175.
LSTM and GPT-2 Synthetic Speech Transfer Learning for Speaker Recognition to Overcome Data Scarcity
Bird, J.J., Faria, D.R., Ekárt, A., Premebida, C. and Ayrosa, P.P., 2020. LSTM and GPT-2 Synthetic Speech Transfer Learning for Speaker Recognition to Overcome Data Scarcity. arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.00659.
Probabilistic Object Classification using CNN ML-MAP layers
Melotti, G., Premebida, C., Bird, J.J., Faria, D.R. and Gonçalves, N., 2020. Probabilistic Object Classification using CNN ML-MAP layers. arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.14565.
Poster Papers
Phoneme Aware Speech Recognition through Evolutionary Optimisation
Bird, J. J., Wanner, E. F., Ekart, A., & Faria, D. R. (2019). Phoneme Aware Speech Recognition through Evolutionary Optimisation. GECCO: The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference 2019.
View on ResearchGate
Funding and Achievements
Successful Proposals
2021
Turing Network Development Award – Contributions made towards a successful proposal for the development of a University-wide data science network, NTU-Turing. The application awarded £25,000 for networking events with the Alan Turing Institute. Award proposal led by Professor Eiman Kanjo and Professor Ahmad Lotfi, at Nottingham Trent University’s Department of Computer Science.
NOTION Workshop at PETRA 2022 – Organisation of the Human Behaviour Monitoring, Interpretation and Understanding workshop (NOTION) at the 15th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference (PETRA). Organisers: Professor Ahmad Lotfi, Dr. David Adama, and Dr. Jordan J. Bird.
http://www.petrae.org/workshops/NOTION.html (Available here after the PETRA 2022 website goes offline)
Achievements
2022
Appointed as Lab Lead by the Head of Department – Nottingham Trent University’s Robotics Lab.
Design and delivery of a robotic tour guide for Nottingham Trent University’s Open Day
Invited Reviewer for the IFRRIA workshop at ICRA 2022 (ICRA 2022 Worksop in Innovation in Forestry Robotics: Research and Industry Adoption)
Robotics demonstration for members of the elderly community towards a research collaboration between Nottingham Trent University and University of Derby
Organisation of the Human Behaviour Monitoring, Interpretation and Understanding workshop (NOTION) workshop at PETRA 2022. (Available here after the PETRA 2022 website goes offline)
2021
Joined the Computational Intelligence and Applications Research Group (CIA) at Nottingham Trent University as a Research Fellow. Nottingham, UK
Awarded a PhD in Computer Science. Thesis available here.
Designed teaching materials for Aston University’s MSc Artificial Intelligence module (tutorials on implementing Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Vehicles with TensorFlow and the CARLA Simulator)
Invited Reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems
2020
Invited Reviewer for MDPI Brain Sciences
Invited Reviewer for the IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine
Invited Reviewer for IEEE RO-MAN 2020 – International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication
Invited Reviewer for Hindawi’s Journal of Sensors
Guest Reviewer for Springer’s Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing
Invited Reviewer for IEEE EDUCON2020
2019
Invited Speaker at BrumAI – Birmingham Artificial Intelligence Meetup
Invited Reviewer for Hindawi’s Journal of Sensors
Invited Reviewer for Elsevier’s Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering Journal
Invited Reviewer for The 3rd International Conference on Computer Science and Application Engineering (CSAE) 2019 Conference
Invited Reviewer for the IEEE Access Journal
Guest Reviewer for the PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments (PETRA) 2019 Conference
2018
Invited Guest Laboratory Session Lead for Final Year BSc. Computer Science Computational Intelligence – Neural Networks and Hyperheuristic Optimisation of Neural Networks
Robotics Demonstration for Think Beyond Data – SME Live 2018. The NEC, Birmingham, UK. (https://sme-live.co.uk/) (https://thinkbeyonddata.com/)
Robotics Demonstration – Brum Youth Trends 2018. Birmingham Town Hall, UK
Artificial Intelligence Q&A meeting with Andy Street, Lord Mayor of the West Midlands. Birmingham, UK
Laboratory session lead for Computer Graphics module. Aston University, Birmingham, UK
Delegate for Aston University and Robotics Demonstration – West Midlands Forum for Growth 2018. The NEC, Birmingham, UK. (https://www.westmidlandsforumforgrowth.co.uk)
Invited Speaker – HeadStart 2018. Aston University, Birmingham, UK
Robotics Demonstration – CompTIA 2018. Birmingham, UK
Awarded Scholarship to study for a PhD. in Computer Science supervised by Dr. Diego R. Faria and Dr. Anikó Ekárt at Aston University, Birmingham, UK
BSc. Dissertation peer-reviewed and published in Advances in Computational Intelligence Systems – https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-97982-3
Teaching and Student Supervision
Note: titles of ongoing projects are subject to change.
MSc Major Project
Pamela Chenge, 2022 – Machine Learning for Predicting Human Behaviour to Reduce Energy Consumption
Pheba Cherian, 2022 – Multiple Object Recognition by a NAO Robot using Deep Learning
Linda Duamwan, 2022 – Early Detection of Brain Diseases
Kate Elliott, 2022 – Explainable AI for Spam Email Detection and Filtering
Saranya Madireddy, 2022 – Real-time Face Detection with Bounding Box Regression in Human-Robot Interaction
Prajith Prasannan, 2022 – Generating and Detecting Fake Online Reviews with Neural Language Models
Joel Puthenpurackal, 2022 – Recognising Objects using Image Classification on NAO Robots
Asha Saju, 2022 – Analysis of Human Participants in Human-Robot Interaction
BSc Final Year Project
Sophie Clark, 2022 – Utilising Pepper Robot to Improve Student Experience During Primary School
Teaching
2022 – Present
Hourly paid lecturer at Nottingham Trent University. Supervising BSc Final Year Projects and MSc Major Projects (details above).
2018-2021
Design of autonomous driving coursework for MSc students at Aston University. Video tutorials on how to use Python and TensorFlow to train deep-learning based reinforcement learning algorithms in a driving simulator (CARLA).
Lecturer for Degree Apprenticeship Programme – leading teaching sessions on Human Computer Interaction (Second year), Web Development (Second year), Geographic Information Systems (Final year), and Mobile App Development (Final year).
Teaching Assistant – assisting in the delivery of Computer Graphics (Second Year) and Computational Intelligence (Final Year).
Laboratory Session Lead for Final Year BSc. Computer Science Computational Intelligence – Neural Networks and Hyperheuristic Optimisation of Neural Networks. Aston University, Birmingham, UK.
Laboratory session lead for Computer Graphics module. Aston University, Birmingham, UK.
2014
Teacher – invited to teach web development to a class of 12-13 year olds while I was an A-Level Student at Erasmus Darwin Academy Sixth Form.
Contact
Email me: jordan@jordanjamesbird.com
University email address: jordan.bird@ntu.ac.uk
Contact Form
The above message is sent to jordan@jordanjamesbird.com