In mid-December QMUL was one of around 20 UK institutions which relayed the Royal Institution’s Christmas Lectures to audiences attending our livestreaming events. Tonight the first of the three lectures will be broadcast on BBC Four at 8pm (hashtag: #XmasLectures).

In “The Truth About AI” Prof Mike Wooldridge of Oxford University will look at the way AI is already being used in a variety of ways and what’s around the corner, with three talks given to a young audience (aged 11-17) in the famous Faraday Lecture Theatre inside the Royal Institution, in Piccadilly.

To celebrate the broadcast (and the fact that Mike used to work at ‘EECS’ (the Electronic Engineering and Computer Science department) at QMUL!) I thought I’d put together an ‘AI at QMUL’ overview to highlight some of the courses, and types of research jobs that people might do, across the university, not just in our computing department.

First, the TV broadcasts for the three episodes in Mike’s series ‘The Truth About AI’ are as follows

• Episode 1: How to build an intelligent machine – BBC Four, 8pm – 26th December 2023 (Boxing Day, Tuesday)
• Episode 2: My AI Life – BBC Four, 8pm – 27th December 2023 (Wednesday)
• Episode 3: The Future of AI: Dream or a Nightmare? – BBC Four, 8pm – 28th December 2023 (Thursday)

AI at QMUL

• Studying AI at QMUL (overview)
• MSc courses at QMUL
• Examples of AI and related research jobs at QMUL

Artificial Intelligence (AI) links to QMUL research and teaching in a number of different ways. It is, of course, not just used by computer scientists but – as with computer science generally – it’s used, studied or considered by academics working in health & medicine, biologists, physicists, those in the Law department, finance, geography, humanities etc. It’s everywhere :)

Studying AI at QMUL

To start with the obvious computing-theme, students can do a three year BSc* (Hons) (Bachelor of Science) taught degree course in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, in the Computer Science department at QMUL. You can also do it as a four year course with a year spent working in industry in the UK or a year abroad.

More generally our library has a Student Guide to Generative AI offering advice to QMUL students about the appropriate use of AI. For example students might be asked to use AI to write an assignment and then critique it.

After a BSc a student might do an MSc* (a one-year taught course) and this is where you can branch out and mix it with other subjects (see longer list is below). 

After that, someone might study for a PhD degree. These usually involve some taught modules as well as independent research. An example could be at the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Artificial Intelligence and Music which has admitted its final cohort of students but will have spaces for a few more next year.

*BSc, MSc, PhD – BSc means Bachelor of Science and is the first of the degree levels you can do, typically at a university. A BA is a Bachelor of the Arts. MSc = Master of Science is the next level and PhD is a doctoral degree (it stands for Doctor of Philosophy, but you would have a philosophy doctorate in whatever subject you study. 

MSc courses at QMUL that use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and / or Machine Learning.

I’m sure there are others too. Because so many disciplines use computers to store and analyse data there is ample opportunity to mix computing with other subjects anyway (see ‘Computing and…‘, our interdisciplinary / mix subjects page highlighting the links computing has with other topics) and AI is no exception. That page was created in partnership with Hertford College at the University of Oxford, coincidentally where Mike Wooldridge is a Senior Research Fellow.

Biosciences
Artificial Intelligence in the Biosciences MSc 
Cancer Genomics and Data Science MSc

Business & Management
Actuarial Science and Data analytics MSc

Chemical Sciences
Artificial Intelligence for Drug Discovery MSc 

Computing (EECS)
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Science MSc
Computer Games MSc
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence BSc  
Data Science and Artificial Intelligence MSc
Machine Learning for Visual Data Analytics MSc

Economics and Finance
Finance and Machine Learning MSc
Mental Health Economics MSc (includes optional machine learning module)

Geography
Environmental Analytics MSc

Law
Legal Tech 
Modules on 
– AI Regulation, Rights and Responsibilities
– AI, Robotics and the Law

Medicine
Health Data in Practice MRes

Examples of AI and related research jobs at QMUL

Each of these jobs are now filled but copies of the job adverts and job descriptions are preserved at the TechDevJobs website, along with many other jobs, for people to browse at their leisure. There are other AI / artificial intelligence and machine learning jobs there, below are ones previously advertised at QMUL.

Data Scientist & Science Communicator – based at the William Harvey Research Institute (WHRI) in Charterhouse Square this job involves using machine learning techniques to analyse large volumes of data to find out more about healthy ageing, and then communicating that information to a range of audiences.

Postgraduate researcher in Cloud Computing Law – based at QMUL’s Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS) this job advertised for someone who is both a lawyer and who has an interest in the legal and regulatory issues around cloud computing, healthcare law and regulation, AI, and cloud robotics.

AI Researcher (healthcare) – also at the WHRI this job advert wanted a computer scientist who could use their programming skills in helping to improve the diagnosis of cardiovascular disease as well as spotting risk factors to prevent disease, improve patient care and learn more about the disease to drive better treatments.

See more examples of jobs in computing, or jobs that use computing skills in the TechDevJobs repository of job adverts and job descriptions.

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This blog is supported through EPSRC grant EP/W033615/1.