Biography

Head shot of Alasdair J G Gray

In September 2013 I became a Lecturer in Computer Science at Heriot-Watt University where I have joined the Intelligent Systems research group. Between 2009 and 2013 I held a postdoc research position in the Information Management Group at the University of Manchester. Prior to that I was in the Information Retrieval group at the University of Glasgow. I obtained my PhD on integrating streams of data in 2007 from Heriot-Watt University where I worked in the Database, Information and Knowledge-base Systems group.

My research focuses on practical data management and its application in information systems –  utilising and extending advances in knowledge management technologies to improve information systems. This approach has supported advances in science while deepening the understanding of knowledge based systems to support future applications. I have collaborated with a large range of scientists – from astronomers through the life sciences to environmental scientists – working with both academic research labs and industrial partners. The success of these projects stems from my ability to work with the domain experts, to understand the issues with their data and to a limited extent their domain, and develop working data management solutions, i.e. practical solutions.

Principally I work on the challenges of integrating data from heterogeneous sources; where the heterogeneity can be from the way the data is modelled, represented, or rate of change. The result is a coherent representation of the data to enable analytical or other processing of the data.