Prof. Gordon Lightbody – Principal Investigator

Gordon graduated first in his class with the MEng degree (1989), and then PhD (1993) both in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Queen’s University Belfast. After a one year post-doctoral position funded by Du Pont, he was appointed by Queen’s University as a Lecturer in Modern Control Systems.

In 1997 he was appointed as a Lecturer in Control Engineering at University College Cork, and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2008. His current research focuses on the application of intelligent control techniques to key research areas, which include biomedical and energy applications.

Within INFANT, Gordon works with Geraldine Boylan and Liam Marnane on research into machine learning and intelligent signal processing for the classification of neonatal EEG and other biomedical signals. This work won the “UCC Invention of the Year Award” in April 2010. In 2014, his paper “EEG-based neonatal seizure detection with Support Vector Machines” was highlighted as one of the most cited papers since 2009 in the Elsevier journal, Clinical Neurophysiology.

Gordon is an associate editor with the Elsevier journal, “Control Engineering Practice”.

• Oct. 08 – present Senior Lecturer, Control Engineering, Dept. Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University College Cork.
• Aug. 97 – Oct. 08:Lecturer in Control Engineering, Dept. Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University College Cork
• April 94 – Aug. 97 Lecturer in Control Engineering, Queens University of Belfast
• May 92 – April 94 Research Assistant, Queens University Belfast, (supported by Du Pont UK)
• Oct. 89 to May 92 Research engineer, IFI Inst. of Advanced Microelectronics, QUB
• Oct. 84 to Oct. 88 Undergraduate engineer training scheme,  Short Brothers (Aerospace) PLC, Belfast

Some highlights:

• June 13 – present Principle Investigator, Science Foundation Ireland, MaREI Research Centre.
• June 13 – present Principle Investigator, Science Foundation Ireland, INFANT Research Centre.
• Mar. 11 – present Principle Investigator, Science Foundation Ireland, PI award, NEOPRISM .
• June 06 – Dec. 06 Sabbatical visit to the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
• July 95 to Aug. 95 Sabbatical visit to University of California at Santa Barbara, USA.

Education

i) Postgraduate

• Oct. 1989-July 93 Doctoral Student, Dept. Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Queen’s University Belfast.
• 1993 Awarded Doctor of Philosophy, (PhD), “Identification and Control using Neural Networks”. Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Queens University Belfast.

Professional activities:

• 1998-present: Associate Editor for the Elsevier journal, “Control Engineering Practice”.
• 1996: Guest editor for a special edition of the “Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control on Advanced Process Control”, 1996
• 2011-2014: National Chairman of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) national member organisation for Ireland.
• 2010-2011: Member of the RIA Engineering Sciences Committee Biomedical Engineering Working Group of the Royal Irish Academy Engineering Sciences Committee.
• 2006-present: Committee member of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) national member organisation. This committee seeks to promote control engineering throughout Ireland via conferences, workshops, and providing a critical mass for research and graduate school initiatives.
• 2013 present Member of IEEE
• 1993-2013 Member of the IET, (formerly IEE). Roles including:
• 2010-2012 University representative for IET
• 2000-05 Cork Representative to the Irish Centre of the IEE
• 1997-2000 Member of Intelligent Control Committee (B4) of the IEE, and part of the management team to the IEE Professional Network on Concepts for Automation and Control
• 1997 Organiser of  the IEE Megaw Memorial lecturing competition for Final Year Project Students.
• 1997 Organiser of the  IEE colloquium in London entitled “Advanced Process Control”.
• 1996-97 Member of the Applied Control Techniques committee (C9) of the IEE
• 1993-95 Committee member of the Young Members Section of the IEE

Career Profile:

• 2010:   Member of the organising committee for the IET international Conference, ISSC2010 in Cork.
• 2005: Member of the organising committee for Universities Power Engineering Conference, UPEC 2005, held in Cork.
• Program co-chair and editor of the Proceedings.
• 2002:  Member of the organising committee for the ISSC2002 in Cork.
• Program co-chair and editor of the Proceedings.
• 2001-2013: Member of the Steering Committee for the IET Irish Signals and Systems Conference
• 1995: Member of the organising committee with responsibility for Local Arrangements, for the 1995 Irish Systems and Signal Conference (ISSC) in Belfast.
• 2016: 13^th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, ICINCO’16.  International Program Committee member.
• 2016: IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN). Vancouver, Canada. Invited reviewer.
• 2016: IEEE 1^st  International Conf. on Control, Measurement and Instrumentation (CMI 2016), January 8^th -10^th , Kolkata, India. Member of the Technical Program Committee.
• 2015: IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN). Killarney, Ireland. International program committee member.
• 2015: 12^th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, ICINCO’15.  International Program Committee member.
• 2014: 11^th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, ICINCO’14, Vienna, Austria. International Program Committee member.
• 2013: 10^th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, ICINCO’13, Reykjavik, Iceland, International Program Committee member.
• 2012: 9^th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, ICINCO’12, Rome, Italy, International Program Committee member.
• 2011: 8^th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, ICINCO’11, Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands, International Program Committee member.
• 2009: 2nd IFAC International Conference on Intelligent Control Systems and Signal Processing (ICONS’09), Istanbul, Turkey , Sept. 21-23, 2009, International Program Committee member.
• 2006: IEEE Int. Workshop on Machine Learning for Signal Processing. Program Committee member.
• 2006: ICINCO 2006, Setubal Portugal, International Program Committee.
• 2005: ICINCO 2005, Barcelona, Spain, International Program Committee.
• 2005: Universities Power Engineering Conference, Cork Ireland. Program Co- Chair, Proceedings Editor, Organising Committee member.
• 2004: 1st International Conference on Informatics in Control Automation and Robotics (ICINCO 2004), Setubal Portugal, International Program Committee.
• 2003: International Program Committee of IFAC International Conference on Intelligent Control Systems and Signal Processing, Portugal (ICONS’03), April 2003.
• 2002: Organising Committee member, Proceedings Editor IEE Irish Systems and Signal Conference (ISSC), Cork.
• 2002: Invited as referee for technical area “Algorithms and Architectures for Real –time Control” at the IFAC World Congress, Barcelona, Spain, July 2002.
• 2001-present: Steering Committee membership for IEE ISSC
• 1995: Organising Committee member for ISSC 1995
• 2015-present: External examiner for The BE and MEng degrees in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Limerick.
• 2011-2015: External examiner for the BE(Hons) degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT).