21st July 2008

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A University of Ulster lecturer has won the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Computational Intelligence Society Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award 2008.
 
Dr Damien Coyle, from the School of Computing and Intelligent Systems at Magee, scooped the accolade for his thesis on Intelligent Pre-processing and Feature Extraction Techniques for a Brain-Computer Interface.
 
Damien is a member of the Intelligent Systems Research Centre at Magee. His research illustrates how computational intelligence (CI) can be employed to tackle complex bio-signal analysis and discrimination in brain-computer interface (BCI) technology.
 
“Research into BCI is targeted at developing methods to assist seriously disabled people to communicate effectively through thought alone. It also has applications in neuro-rehabilitation and in the augmentation of computer games,” explains Dr Coyle.
 
“BCI requires accuracy, speed and autonomous adaptation capabilities and this thesis addresses these requirements using novel bio-inspired CI methods to produce an intelligent system that can accurately classify brainwaves within real-time constraints.”
  
Dr Coyle travelled to Hong Kong to collect the award at the IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI08). He was presented with the award by the President of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, Dr David Fogel.
 
 “I am delighted and honoured to receive the award from the IEEE CIS. Computational intelligence and brain-computer interface are the main focus of my current research and this award has emphasized the importance of the research direction on which I continue to focus,” said Dr Coyle.
 
Professor Liam Maguire, Head of School of Computing and Intelligent Systems, who nominated Dr Coyle for the award, said: “This prestigious award recognises the excellence of Damien’s work in his PhD, the contribution of his supervisors, Professor Martin McGinnity and Dr Girijesh Prasad, and the internationally recognised research ongoing in the Intelligent Systems Research Centre in the School at Magee.”
 

For further information, please contact:

Martin Cowley
Telephone: 028 71675083
Email: Martin Cowley