UEA appoints top BT industrial scientist as visiting professor
By: News Archive
Senior BT industrial research scientist Nader Azarmi has been appointed Visiting Professor to the School of Computing Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA).
Prof Azarmi is currently Head of the BT Global Research & Innovation Programme at the BT Laboratories at Adastral Park, Martlesham Heath, Suffolk. He joined BT in 1989, starting his R&D work on the application of Artificial Intelligence technology to BT's telecommunications network management and next generation resource management systems.
He went on to create and pioneer BT's highly successful Intelligent Systems research and development programme, covering technologies such as optimisation, scheduling, agent, soft and evolutionary computing and their practical applications.
He’s recently worked with Prof Gerard Parr, Chair in Telecommunications Engineering and Head of the School of Computing Science at UEA, on the development and roll-out of major ICT research and innovation initiatives in India, the Middle East and China.
Profr Azarmi has been involved in many collaborations around the world, covering institutions and companies in the USA, (eg MIT and the University of Berkeley), the Middle East (the Emirates BT Innovation Centre in Abu Dhabi), China (Tsinghua University in Beijing), India (eg IIT Madras and Infosys) as well as the UK, and provides strategic advice to senior figures in government and industry.
He has a number of international and national awards, numerous BT technical awards and has authored many technical papers and edited and published technical journals and scientific books. He has also published several international patents.
In addition to his BT research activities, Prof Azarmi spent many years as a researcher and Senior Lecturer at Essex, Kingston and London universities.
“I am delighted to be part of the team at UEA and the School of Computing Sciences,” he said. “In a world where achieving commercial success and dealing with many societal challenges are ever more dependent on innovation, I am aimed at creating closer links between academia and industry. Such a co-operation is essential for carrying out high impact research and successfully delivering purposeful innovation through which the pursuit of scientific breakthrough is married with practical engineering, not only to power the industry but to transform the society and the world.
Prof Parr said: "We are delighted to have Prof Azarmi joining us - my collaborations with him have already had outstanding impact in terms of research developments and initiatives, and this appointment takes our research engagement with the telecommunications industry to a world-leading level at UEA."
In his new role, Prof Azarmi will help to develop and support existing and future collaborations with Prof Parr and colleagues at the UEA School of Computing Sciences and will also provide mentoring and advice on new opportunities and closer collaborations between UEA and BT and wider industry.
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