Pol Mac Aonghusa (Pol)

I am a Senior Research Manager in the Accelerated Discovery (AD) team in the Dublin, Ireland Research Lab. In this role it is my privilege to support and coordinate the research activities of incredibly talented research teams across the Lab, and to help align our research with the larger AD activities around the world.

My primary research interest has always been in the interaction between people and technology. Accelerated Discovery is an exciting opportunity to explore this space further as we understand how to to better harness technologies to accelerated advances in discovery science. The vast volumes of data, complex modelling and simulation, coupled with advanced technology will pose interesting new challenges for human cognition. Our technical focus in Dublin includes areas such as Future Computing Platforms, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Generative Neural Networks, Optimisation and Control.

In the past, I investigated data privacy as a challenge in how humans can share information while balancing the tradeoff between utility and risk from technology. In the early days of the Dublin Lab I led research teams focused on Knowledge Representation and Management through the lens of Smarter Cities. This led naturally into follow-on research in healthcare where the consequences of AI-based decision making can have life-altering consequences for real-world outcomes. Most recently I have had the opportunity to work directly with surgeons to apply bio-informed AI to provide real-time tissue classification. The results of this research have the potential to transform the cancer journey for millions of patients and was recognised on the front cover of the British Journal of Surgery. Our work in healthcare has won prizes at research conferences such as ISWC and has been included in Global Technology Outlooks. We work closely with our colleagues in Watson Health to deliver the outputs of our research to the market. 

During my years with IBM I have contributed to several EU Horizon and FP7 funded research projects and research grants from the Wellcome Trust.

I have a PhD in Computer Science from Trinity College Dublin and MSc and BSc in Mathematical Physics from University College Dublin.