My research is primarily in the area of Constraint Programming (CP). Problems often consist of choices. Making an optimal choice which is compatible with all other choices made is difficult. CP is the branch of Artificial Intelligence, where computers help us to make these choices.
Constraint programming is a multidisciplinary technology combining computer science, operational research and mathematics. Constraints arise in design & configuration, planning & scheduling, diagnosis & testing, and in many other contexts. CP can solve problems in telecommunication, e-commerce, electronics, bioinformatics, transportation, network management, supply chain management, and many other fields. My research aim is to continue applying CP to various problems in other scientific disciplines. My research is always very varied; I have looked at transport scheduling problems, satellite data processing problems and some problems from mathematics.
In more detail, a constraint program consists of a set of variables, a set of possible values, for each variable and a set of constraints. For example, the problem might be to fit components (values) to circuit boards (variables), subject to the constraint that no two components can be overlapping. A solution to a CP is an allocation of values to variables such that none of the constraints are violated.
Currently, my main research project looks at using CP to solve problems in Group theory. Group theory is the mathematical study of symmetry. One may remember in primary school finding the symmetry of shapes, possibly by using a mirror putting it down on a line through the shape and seeing if the same shape can be seen through the mirror as was on the worksheet. If the same shape was seen than this line could label led as symmetry. Group theory is the science that allows you to reason about symmetry. By using group theory you can compare and contrast the symmetry found in one shape, with that in another shape. Group theory is used by physicists in a very similar way. They are interested in trying to build stable crystal structures, and they look for symmetries to help them towards this goal.
There are still a lot of open problems in group theory and it is widely studied by pure mathematicians. The goal of my project is to build a system using constraint programming that will allow researchers to learn more about group theory. I expect a lot of the time this system will actually be used to negate results. By this I mean that a group theorists will come up with a possible group theory theorem, and wish to test whether it is valid. One way to do this, will be to ask the computer to look for groups (sets of symmetry) which do not satisfy the theorem, if the computer can find such an example then the theorem is false. Quite often scientists can spend weeks exploring a theorem or hypothesis only to find a counter example, and hence realise they were wrong (I have done this myself, on more than one occasion), I hope my program will save some of this time and effort. I also believe that once this system is developed for group theory it might be possible to develope similar system for other areas of mathematics and even other disciplines. This would be a very exciting innovation for the scientific community.
Having learned to programme on a Commodore 64 at the age of 8, I decided to further my knowledge of computing by undertaking a Computer Science degree. After completing my degree I undertook a PhD in Constraint Programming (CP), a branch of Artificial Intelligence. Difficult problems can offer too many choices, many of which are incompatible, few of which are optimal. CP is a technology that will make it easier for computers to help us make these choices. I won the BCS award for the Young IT Practitioner of the year in 2004 for work I conducted during an internship at NASA where I invented a CP based algorithms for processing the data obtained from earth observing satellites. I finished my PhD in 2004 and since then have worked in various post-doctoral positions. I was awarded a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin?s Research Fellowship in October 2007, which I currently hold in the Computing Laboratory at Oxford University. I am also the chair of BCSWomen.
