About Me
Hello, I’m Jordan Bird. Welcome to my website! I’ve always had an interest in the world of technology which has led me on the path of being a researcher. I have a vast curiosity of what the future holds and I also have a longstanding enjoyment for programming and academia. My main passions in life, first and foremost, have been related to the Sciences; I was always asking questions without answers as a kid and now I want to try to answer them too.
I am a founding member of ARVIS Lab (Aston Robotics, Vision and Intelligent Systems)
Research interests: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computational Intelligence, Machine Learning, Human-machine Interaction, Robotics, Natural Language Processing.
Curriculum Vitae
Professional Experience
Jul 2018 – Present
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
Awarded a scholarship to continue my studies at Aston University as a researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Supervised by Dr. Diego R. Faria.
2014 – 2018
Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science
Aston University
Graduated with a First Class Honours degree.
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
Testimonials
Sarah Mathews
The MuseFuse
Jordan has a very clear thought process in regards to the projects. Good analytical and Marketing skills knowledge. He’s always prompt to revert and communication is smooth and makes working with him easy!
Published Works
ResearchGate Profile Google Scholar Profile
Journal Articles
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., Ekart, 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.
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. D. S., & Ekart, A. (2020). A study on CNN image classification of EEG Signals represented in 2D and 3D. Journal of Neural Engineering.
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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
Achievements
2021
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
Founding Member of ARVIS Lab (Aston Robotics, Vision, and Intelligent Systems)
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. 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
AI Art
A work in progress
This is art generated by Machine Learning algorithms. I am working on a pipeline that combines the technologies of Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Networks, Cycled Style Transfer, Autonomous Enhancement and Super Resolution.
Version 2
Version 1
