12 August - 19 August 2026 ISRC-CN3 Summer School

Tony Prescott

Tony Prescott is Professor of Cognitive Robotics at the University of Sheffield, UK, and the co-founder and former director of Sheffield Robotics, a cross-disciplinary research institute across both Universities in Sheffield. He is also an active member of the Sheffield Neuroscience Institute. He is a fellow of the British Psychological Society, was a Sage Centre for the Study of Mind Distinguished Fellow in 2018, and a finalist in the 2022 Ana Avatar competition for telepresence robotics.

Tony’s research mixes robotics and artificial intelligence with psychology, brain theory and philosophy and aims at answering questions about the human condition by creating synthetic entities with animal or human-like capacities such as perception, memory, emotion and sense of self. His approach takes a posthuman perspective, examining the ever-deepening relationship between our species and the technologies we create. He also regularly speaks and writes about the societal and cultural impacts of future robotic, AI, virtual reality and telepresence technologies.

Tony has published over 240 articles and conference papers at the interface of robotics, AI, psychology, and neuroscience, and has received £10M in grant funding from UKRI, InnovateUK, the European Framework and Horizon Europe programmes and the Wellcome Trust. He is the co-creator of the award-winning animal-like robots Scratchbot, Shrewbot and MiRo-e, and the lead editor of The Scholarpedia of Touch, published by Springer, and of Living Machines: A Handbook of Research in Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems published by Oxford University Press. He co-founded and co-chairs the annual international Living Machines conference.

Tony has co-founded two robotics spin-out companies, Consequential Robotics, developing education and assistive living technologies, and Bettering Our Worlds (BOW), who develop software that makes it easier to program robots. He is also passionate about the use of robots in STEM education and founded the Skills and Education in Robotics and AI network. Tony’s research is regularly featured in online and print media and has been covered by the BBC One Show, BBC Breakfast, Tomorrow’s World Live, BBC Sunday Morning, Sky News and BBC Radio 4 Today, World at One, Costing the Earth, Inside Science and Material World. International coverage has included the Discovery Channel, Arte Channel, and CNN.

Dara Cannon

Professor of Neuroscience

Dara Cannon is a professor of neuroscience at the University of Galway on the west coast of Ireland. Prof Cannon’s research laboratory focuses on the biological underpinnings of psychiatric disorders including analyses using brain imaging, genetic, cognitive and life context with a teaching focus on gross anatomical and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) based neuroanatomy and neuroimaging.

Elisa Doneti

Adj. Professor

Elisa Donati holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in biomedical engineering from the University of Pisa and a Ph.D. in biorobotics from Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies. She is currently an Adj. Professor at the Institute of Neuroinformatics (INI), University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, where she also leads the research group Neuromorphic Closed-loop Systems. Elisa is part of the Neuroscience Center of Zurich.

Her work sits at the crossroads of neuroscience, neuromorphic engineering, and biomedical applications, with a focus on developing closed-loop neural interfaces, neuromorphic sensors and algorithms for biomedical signal processing, and spiking neural networks for real-time sensory encoding. She is partner in several international and national projects funded by the Royal Society UK, SNSF, and NATO.

Damien Coyle

University of Bath & Ulster University

Prof Damien Coyle is Professor of Neurotechnology and Director of the Bath Institute for the Augmented Human, University of Bath. He is a UKRI Turing AI Acceleration Fellow 2021-25, and was previously director of the Intelligent Systems Research Centre, Ulster University (2017-2022). His research focuses on developing AI to address challenges associated with translating electrophysiological signals into control signals in brain-computer interfaces (BCI) to enable movement-independent communication/interaction targeting assistive and augmentative communication devices, cognitive and physical rehabilitation technology, and human augmentation.

He has won several prestigious international awards including the 2008 IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award, the 2011 International Neural Network Society (INNS) Young Investigator of the Year Award and the IET and E&T Innovation of the Year Award 2018. He was an Ulster University Distinguished Research Fellow in 2011, a Royal Academy of Engineering/The Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellow in 2013, a Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellow in 2016-2017 and an Ulster Senior Distinguished Research Fellow in 2021.

He is a founding member of the International Brain-Computer Interface Society, an IEEE Brain Technical Community Steering Committee member, and an Advisory board member for the UK Neurotechnology Innovation Network. He is Founder and CEO of NeuroCONCISE Ltd, an award-winning, AI-enabled, wearable neurotechnology company.

• Damien Coyle PURE profile

Girijesh Prasad

Ulster University

Prof. Girijesh Prasad is Professor of Intelligent Systems in the School of Computing, Engineering and Intelligent Systems, Ulster University (UU), UK. He is Director of Northern Ireland Functional Brain Mapping (NIFBM) facility at UU’s Intelligent Systems Research Centre, where he leads the Cognitive Neuroscience and Neurotechnology research team.

He received a BTech in Electrical Engineering from Regional Engineering College (now National Institute of Technology) Calicut, India in 1987, an MTech in Computer Science and Technology from University of Roorkee (now Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee), India in 1992, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Queen's University of Belfast, UK in 1997. He is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of IET, a Fellow of Higher Education Academy, a Senior Member of IEEE, and a founder member of IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics society’s Technical Committee on Brain-Machine Interface Systems. In 2017, he was awarded the Fellowship of International Academy of Physical Sciences (IAPS) India, and the Senior Distinguished Research Fellowship of Ulster University. Prof. Prasad joined Ulster University, as a Lecturer in 1999; he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2007, Reader in 2008, and Professor in 2011. Previously he worked in industry first as a Digital Systems Engineer and then as a Power Plant Engineer in India, and as a Research Fellow on an EPSRC/industry project at Queen’s University of Belfast, UK.

His research interests are in intelligent systems, data engineering, brain modelling, brain-computer interface (BCI) & neuro-rehabilitation, and assistive technology. Under his supervision, an advanced rehabilitation protocol has been developed incorporating an active physical practice stage followed by a mental practice stage, using a neuro-rehab system consisting of a robotic hand exoskeleton and an EEG/EEG-EMG based BCI, which has been trialled on groups of chronic stroke patients in UK as well as India, resulting in transformative change in patients’ quality of life. He has published over 285 research papers in journals, edited books, and conference proceedings. He has supervised to completion 22 PhD students. His research has attracted 18 research grant awards amounting to over £10M funding from national and international agencies including Invest Northern Ireland, Department of Employment and Learning, Research Councils UK (RCUK), Leverhulme Trust, Royal Society, UK India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Irish industry.

• Girijesh Prasad PURE profile

Dr Judith Evers

Assistant Professor (Ad Astra Fellow)

Dr. Judith Evers is an Assistant Professor (Ad Astra Fellow) at UCD School of Veterinary Medicine leading a small research group on preclinical neuromodulation.

She holds a degree in veterinary medicine from Leipzig University, Germany, and worked in the equine sector for 2 years. She completed her PhD in translational medicine at UCD School of Medicine on sacral neuromodulation in the treatment of faecal incontinence and implemented chronic sacral neuromodulation in rodents. Judith then joined the Neuromuscular Systems Lab led by Prof. Madeleine Lowery at UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering as a postdoctoral researcher, where she characterised the electrode-tissue interface of chronically implanted cerebral electrodes with the SfI CURAM Centre for medical device development which affects efficacy, implemented closed-loop deep brain stimulation in rodents where the applied stimulation adapts to current symptom severity and studied directional deep brain stimulation leads in a Boston Scientific and SfI Insight Centre co-funded project.

Her research team currently focussed on novel stimulation algorithms for brain stimulation and new stimulation location in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.

Cian O’Donnell

Ulster University

Bio: Cian O'Donnell did a B.Sc. in Applied Physics at Dublin City University, followed by an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Neuroinformatics at University of Edinburgh where he studied biophysical models of electrical noise and synaptic plasticity in single neurons. He then worked for 3 years as a postdoc in the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California modelling synaptic plasticity in neural circuits, and analysing neural population activity data from mouse models of autism. From 2015-2021 he was a lecturer at the University of Bristol, then in October 2021 he joined Ulster University at Magee as a Lecturer in Data Analytics. His research group has 3 postdoctoral RAs and 6 PhD researchers, working on three topics: 1) learning and memory in the brain; 2) neural circuit dysfunction in autism; 3) statistical methods for neuroscience data.

• O'Donnell Group website
• Cian O'Donnell PURE profile

KongFatt Wong-Lin

Ulster University

Professor KongFatt Wong-Lin is based at the Intelligent Systems Research Centre, School of Computing, Engineering and Intelligent Systems, in Ulster University, UK. His research interests lie at the interface of computational modelling and mathematical analysis of systems and cognitive neuroscience, psychology, brain disorders, neural computation and engineering, AI and data science.

He is Editorial Member for the Journal of Neuroscience Methods, and Associate Editor for Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience. Before joining Ulster University, he was a research associate at Princeton University, USA, with affiliation to The Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics, Center for the Study of Brain, Mind and Behavior, and Princeton Neuroscience Institute.

Prior to that, he received his Ph.D. in Physics with focus on Computational Neuroscience at Brandeis University, USA, with affiliation to the Volen National Center for Complex Systems. He received the 2011 IJCNN Best Paper Award, the 2016 Ulster University’s Distinguished Research Fellowship Award, and the 2019 Ulster University Research Excellence Award.

In 2017, he received the Moore Institute Visiting Research Fellowship at the National University of Ireland Galway, and in 2020, a Visiting Fellowship at the University of Oxford.

Saugat Bhattacharyya

Ulster University

Dr Saugat Bhattacharyya is a Lecturer in Computer Science in the School of Computing, Engineering & Intelligent Systems. His research interests are in the area of Brain-Computer Interfacing, Neurotechnology, Human Cognitive Augmentation, Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics and Machine Learning and its application in Human-Machine Interaction and Neuro-Rehabilitation.

His research is primarily focused on developing brain-computer interfacing systems based on robust signal processing, quantitative and machine learning algorithms to draw inference into an users' state of mind through their neural and other physiological signals. He has over 70 publications in form of peer-reviewed journals and international conferences.

He is a recipient of US-Ireland R&D Partnership Programme, MRC Equipment Grant and GCRF pump-priming as co-investigator and two PhD fellowships by CSIR, India and Erasmus Mundus. He is currently serving as treasurer in the IEEE-EMBS UK-Ireland chapter and as associate editor/section board member in Frontiers in Medical Technology and MDPI Brain Sciences.

• Saugat Bhattacharyya PURE profile

Dr Maria Dauvermann

Dr Dauvermann’s research focusses on the identification of risk and resilience markers in young people who are at high risk of developing neurodevelopmental and mental health conditions, and is also interested in the characterisation of biopsychosocial prognostic markers of clinical and functional outcome. She uses cognitive neuroscientific and interdisciplinary methods to integrate neurobiological, psychological and psychosocial factors to better understand how youth vulnerability can influence and be influenced by neurodevelopmental and mental health conditions.

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Dr Barry Dillon

In 2016, Barry has completed his PhD in theoretical physics where he was studying the phenomenology of beyond the standard model physics scenarios.  He then held three postdoctoral research positions at the University of Plymouth (2017-2018), Jozef Stefan Institute (2018-2020), and the University of Heidelberg (2020-2023).

Since 2018, his research has focused on the application of machine-learning tools to particle physics phenomenology, in particular to the search for new physics at the Large Hadron Collider.  In 2023, he then worked in machine-learning research and development at AllstateNI, before taking up a post at Ulster University this year as a Lecturer in Mathematics.

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Ingrid Odermatt

Ingrid received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Psychology from the University of Bern, Switzerland. She then pursued a PhD in Neuroscience in the Neural Control of Movement Lab at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, where she investigated the brain's ability to activate and modulate sensorimotor representations in the absence of overt movements and somatosensory input. Using fMRI and TMS, she studied neuroplasticity in the sensorimotor system induced by neurofeedback training.
In 2025, she joined the School of Psychology at Queen's University Belfast, UK, as a postdoctoral researcher, where she continues to investigate neurofeedback training interventions aimed at improving sensorimotor function.

• Ingrid Odermatt PURE profile