About

Read on for a very brief history of me!

An Irish-Brummie with the lilt but not the brogue of the Irish

 

I live in Carlow, Ireland and work for the South East Technological University in Carlow, Ireland, lecturing in Electrical, Electronics and embedded computing to first, second, third and fourth-year students. I supervise M.Sc. projects in Machine Learning. I write research proposals for Science Foundation Ireland, Irish Research Council and Horizon Europe. I hold a PhD in Computer Science, specialising in hardware micro-architectural optimisation of Machine Learning algorithms in FPGA and ASIC at Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, under advisor Professor Dr David Gregg.

Being born, growing up and attending school in Birmingham, England, makes me a Brummie. However, as of 2019, I am an Irish citizen too!

Education

I undertook my Electrical and Electronic Engineering Honours Degree at Coventry University, Coventry, England.

Evolve 2009
I appear on page 13 of Evolve 2009 issue.

(see the Alumni Pages of Evolve). I then undertook a Master’s Degree in System Design (Microelectronics) at the University of Central England (UCE), Birmingham, England, now renamed Birmingham City University. I hold my PhD in Computer Science, specialising in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning implemented in hardware at Trinity College Dublin. You can find a list of publications on my publications page.

Career

In 1995 I did a work placement during my Master’s Degree with Lucas Electronics (Now part of TRW) in Birmingham, England. They then took me on, and I worked for them for two and a half years. In 1997 I moved to Cambridge, England, to work for ARM Limited for two and a half years. In 1998 ARM Ltd floated on Nasdaq and London Stock Exchange.

After that, in November 1999, I moved to Dublin, Ireland, to work for Silicon Systems Limited (SSL) (this website has now been sold). SSL then changed its name to Parthus Technologies plc in 2000 and floated on Nasdaq and London Stock Exchange. In 2002 Parthus Technologies plc merged with Ceva Inc (part of the DSP Group) to become ParthusCeva Inc. They have now changed their name to Ceva DSP.

In 2003 I started working for Trinity College Dublin as a Research Assistant researching Delay Tolerant Sensor Networks for the Interplanetary Internet. I also did a little lecturing on the MSc in Ubiquitous Computing course. With the research contract complete, I moved to Xilinx(pronounced Zylinks) in 2004, although I kept on lecturing and supervising in Trinity on the MSc in Ubiquitous Computing course until 2009.

In 2016, you could say I pivoted and took myself out of the industry and into academia by starting my PhD and becoming a lecturer at the Institute of Technology Carlow, now South East Technological University. I’ve been doing that ever since.

Personal Life

I’m married to Michelle with two children; Toby and Zara.

We support a few friends in the music industry. Sean McGhee has partnered with Richard Oakes of Suede fame and formed Artmagic. They’ve released two albums, “Become The One You Love” and “The Songs Of Other England”, and are touring.

John Callaghan is our other good friend we support. He recently released a new album, “John Callaghan’s Cortical Charabanc”, available from his website. He is always gigging as a solo artist or with Eccentronic.

Michelle (my wife) and I used to go along to the gigs of Sean Needham (and Darren Bowler, his bassist). Check out Sean Needham’s page. I’ve mastered CDs of Sean’s gigs (he’s two live CDs so far). If you’d like a copy of the gigs, contact Sean at his website. Sean also released an album in 2004 (16th April, to be precise) called “Loosely Based on a True Story”, which is available in most good record shops and at his site.

Now we support our children, who gig regularly in various pubs and Easter parades. They have also written a song called “Small School, Big Heart” for their school. They recently professionally recorded the song.