About Andy
Personal website: www.andywills.info
Academic background
I became interested in artificial intelligence through an early interest in computers (I was paid for my first computer program at age 12). I studied psychology as an undergraduate (Southampton, 1990 - 1993) because of a (still-held) belief that psychology can inform the design of intelligent systems. A continuing interest in neural networks led to me studying for a Ph.D. with computational learning theorist Ian McLaren (Cambridge, 1994 - 1998). I continued my Ph.D. research as a Junior Research Fellow (Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1998 - 2000).
Keen to secure a permanent position, and interested in teaching as well as research, I moved to Exeter University, where I became a lecturer (2000), senior lecturer (2005), and then associate professor (2006). In 2012, I moved to Plymouth as a full professor.
Research interests:
My principal interest is the categorization of visual objects. This interest has also led me to work on the role of errors and attention in learning more generally. By some metrics, I'm in the top 1% of my field worldwide (the methodology for this calculation can be found here).
I'm also a strong advocate for open science, and the maintainer of a number of R packages, including catlearn (an open repository of learning and categorization models, with over 43,000 downloads to date).
Supervised Research Degrees
2023: Lenard Dome
2019: Angus Inskter
2017: Charlotte Edmunds
2014: Henrietta Roberts
2014: Fayme Yeates
2006: Fraser Milton
2005: Alice Welham
2004: Kazuhiro Goto
Teaching
Research methods, cognitive psychology and neuroscience.
I'm the lead author of the Creative Commons teaching materials Research Methods in R.
Contact Andy
B230, Portland Square, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA
andy.wills@plymouth.ac.uk
