MINI BIOGRAPHY

Frans Coenen

(October 2017)

[1] (100 to 150 words, updated January 2022) Frans Coenen is a Professor of Computer Science at The University of Liverpool. He has been working in the field of AI for some 36 years especially in the context of Machine Leraning. He is particularly interested in the application of the techniques of Machine Learning to unusual data sets, such as: (i) graphs and social networks, (ii) time series, (iii) free text of all kinds, (iv) 2D and 3D images, particularly medical images, and (v) video data. He is also interested in data mining over encrypted data. He currently leads a small research group working on many aspect of Machine Learning and AI. He has some 450 refereed research publications, and has been on the programme committees for many Machine Learning conferences and related events. Frans Coenen is currently director for the University of Liverpool Doctoral Network in AI for Future Digital Health, and Director of Studies for the Online Masters programmes provided by the Department of Computer Science at The University of Liverpool.

[2] (250 to 300 words) Frans Coenen has a general background in AI, and has been working in the field of data mining and Knowledge Discovery in Data (KDD) for the last fifteen years. More specifically with respect to the many elements that comprise the research domain of Data Mining and Big Data Analytics as applied to unusual data sets, such as: (i) graphs of all kinds including social network data; (ii) time series such as sound waves for the purposes of identifying patterns and trends; (iii) free text of all kinds, but particularly legal texts, not just for data extraction purposes but also with a view to learning ontologies; (iv) 2D and 3D images, especially medical images and (v) video data. He is also interested in data mining using (homomorphically) encrypted data. He currently leads a small research group (8 PhDs and 4 RAs) working on many aspect of data mining and KDD. He has some 380 refereed publications on KDD and AI related research, and has been on the programme committees for many KDD conferences and related events. He is pleased to have been the founder of the UK KDD symposia series, which is now in its twelfth year. He is cirrently the director for the University of Liverpool Center for Doctoral Training in AI for Future Digital Health. Frans Coenen is a member of The British Computer Society (BCS) and the BCS' Specialist Group in AI (BCS-SGAI). He has been chair and deputy/technical programme chair for the BCS-SGAI AI series of conference. Frans Coenen is currently professor within the Department of Computer Science at the University of Liverpool where he is the director for the University of Liverpool Center for Doctoral Training (CDT) in AI for Future Digital Health, and director of studies for the department's on-line MSc programmes.

Frans Coenen



SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Frans Coenen

(October 2018)

Name plate

Frans Coenen has been has a thirty year research track record in AI, machine learning and big data analytics. He is currently particularly interested in machine learning and big data analytics in the context of unusual data sets, such as: (i) graphs and social networks, (ii) time series, (iii) free text of all kinds, (iv) 2D and 3D images, particularly medical images, and (v) video data. He is also interested in data mining over encrypted data and applications of machine learning in the fields of personalised health, infectious diseases and AI and Law. He currently leads a small team (7 PhDs and 3 RAs) working on many aspect of data mining and machine learning. He has been on the programme committees for many machie learning events and is pleased to have been the founder of the UK KDD (Knowledge Discovery in Data) symposia series which is now in its thirteenth year. He is also very honoured to have been invited to present a two week machine learning lecture series on Havana, Cuba, on behalf of CENATAV. Frans Coenen is a member of the IFIP WG12.2 --- Machine Learning and Data Mining group.

In the context of AI Frans Coenen is a member of the The British Computer Society (BCS) Specialist Group in AI (BCS-SGAI). He has been involved, in various capacities (chair, co-chair, technical programme chair, deputy technical programme chair) with the British Computer Societies (BCS) annual international AI conferences. For many years (1998-2009) he was a key figure on the BCS-SGAI committee, which he was invited to join; and was founder and first editor of Expert Update, the SGAI magazine. He is also on the editorial board for the Journal of Knowledge and Information systems and for the Knowledge Engineering review

Frans Coenen's current funded research is founded on two Innovate UK projects, one directed at the application of machine learning techniques to extract information from legal documents and one work on intelligent agents direc6ed at the smart utilisation of data from laboratory analytical instruments. He has a strong track record of attracting grant funding with soem twenty previous funded resarch projects

Frans Coenen has some 360 refereed research papers published in international journals and conference proceedings (plus several books).

He has made presentations at many international conferences and workshops.




LONG BIOGRAPHY

Frans Coenen

(May 2009)

Frans Coenen was born in the Netherlands (Tilburg), however moved to the UK at the age of four. On completing his education (1974) he joined the Merchant Navy as an apprentice navigator (a "nav-cadet") with Ellerman City Liners. He completed his apprenticeship in 1978 gaining a Class 3 Certificate of Competency ("2nd Mate's Ticket") and continued to be employed by Ellerman City liners, first in the capacity of Third Officer and then as Second Officer, working on all types of vessel and on world wide trades. During this period (1982) he also gained his Class 2 Certificate of Competency ("1st Mate's Ticket").

In 1983 Frans Coenen left Ellerman City Liners to follow a degree course at Liverpool Polytechnic (now the Liverpool John Moores University). Within this period (summers of 1984 and 1985) he returned to sea as a hydrographic surveyor, first employed by Gardline and then BUE-Subsea, working on a number of MOD contract surveys ("spreads"). In 1986 he gained a first Class Honours Degree and returned briefly to sea for the last time, before taking up a post as a research officer at Liverpool Polytechnic working with Peter Smeaton on the "KBS in Marine Navigation" project. While engaged upon this research work he also registered for a Ph.D. which was awarded in 1989

During his time at Liverpool Polytechnic, Frans Coenen trained as a sub-aqua diver, gaining his "First Class Divers" qualification some time in 1987. For several years subsequent to this he ran the Liverpool Polytechnic diving club. He still retains an interest in sub-aqua diving.

On completion of his Ph.D. Frans Coenen briefly taught mathematics and hydrographic surveying within the School of Engineering and Technology Management (SETM) at Liverpool Polytechnic before joining the Department of Computer Science at the University of Liverpool in January 1990. From 1990-1992 he was employed as a research assistant on the MAKE project working with Trevor Bench-Capon, and from 1992-94 as a research associate on the Aide de Camp project working with Prof. Michael Shave. In early 1994 he wrote his first EPSRC research proposal, the dGKBIS project, in which he included himself as the named researcher. The proposal was duly funded as a consequence of which Frans Coenen gained a lectureship at the University of Liverpool. He took up his post on the 1 May 1997 on the successful completion of the dGKBIS project.

Since joining the Computer Science Department at the University of Liverpool Frans Coenen has taught on the second year "comparative languages" course, initially concentrating on declarative languages and later imperative and OOP languages. From 1997 Frans Coenen's main teaching responsibility was the first year introductory programming course which he entirely revised in 1999 adopting Java as the teaching language (previously the department's teaching language was Ada). He was instrumental in the introduction of four new under graduate programmes for the 2002-2003 academic year for which he received a University "recognition award".

In 2001 he was promoted to senior lecturer and became director of studies for the Department's "on-campus" taught MSc programmes. He entirely revised the departments MSc provision for 2005-2006, and continued to be director of studies for the Department's "on-campus" taught MSc programmes till September 2009.

From 1999 onwards Frans Coenen has been involved in the University of Liverpool's eLearning initiative, initially in Collaboration with KIT eLearning and currently Laureate Online Education, initially working closely with Professor Paul Leng. He became director of studies for the Department's "on-line" taught MSc programmes in September 2008.

Frans Coenens more recent successful research initiatives include: (i) Model Based Methods for supporting field service engineers in a flexible manufacturing context (the "stoves" project), a Foresight-Link award commenced in December 1999, completed in January 2003; (ii) DOMAIN (Dynamic Operations Management Across the Internet), EPSRC project GR/M52915, September 1999-September 2002; (iii) PRIMA TCS project (TCS programme No. 3452): "The invention and creation of a security firewall software application that will allow small companies to keep their business data secure on a single (PC) server while providing Internet access to any third party", Commenced in August 2001 competed in December 2002; and (iv) the PETER (Plant and Equipment Tracking and Effective Retrieval) TCS project. and (v) a number of EPSRC awards to provide student bursaries for the UKKDD series of workshops which he initiated. Current funded research is centered on two KTP projects: (i) Transglobal and (ii) Deeside.

Current research is directed at data mining and Knowledge Discovery in Data (KDD). Frans Coenen is particularly interested in: Social Network Mining; Trend Mining; the mining of non-standard data sets such a Graph, Image and document bases; and the practical application of data mining in its many forms. He currently leads a small research group (11 PhDs and 2 RAs) working on many aspects of data mining and KDD. He has been on the programme committees for many KDD events and is pleased to have been the founder of the UK KDD symposia series which is now in its fifth year (UKKDD'09 was held in Salford on the 22 April 2009). He is also very honoured to have been invited to present a two week lecture series on Havana, Cuba, on behalf of CENATAV. Frans Coenen is a member of the IFIP WG12.2 --- Machine Learning and Data Mining group.

Frans Coenen has also received acclaim amongst the Expert System validation and verification (V&V) community on whose behalf he founded the VVI (Validation, Verification and Integrity) series of biannual international workshops (for which he has been chair and co-chaired). He was also co-chair of EUROVAV'99, the key event on the global Expert Systems V&V calendar; is the author of a standard reference book on Expert Systems V&V (although it is now somewhat out of date); and editor of the most recent collection of papers on the subject.

Frans Coenen is a member of the organising committee of the British Computer Society's Specialist Group on AI (BCS-SGAI); and was founder and first editor (1998 to 2004) of Expert Update (ISSN 1465-4091) the group's magazine. He is also a member of the European Co-ordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence (ECCAI). Frans Coenen was conference chair for ES2002 (Cambridge), and the first Chair and founder of the UKKDD ("UK Knowledge Discovery in Data") series of conferences commencing with UKKDD'05 (Liverpool). He was also: technical programme chair for AI2003 (Cambridge); deputy technical programme chair for ES2001 (Cambridge), AI2004 (Cambridge) and AI2005 (Cambridge); and co-chair for the "Philosophies and Methodologies for Knowledge Discovery" (PMKD'05) workshop (Copenhagen). Frans Coenen is on the programme committee for IEEE ICDM'05 (New Orleans). Frans Coenen was also a member of the group that prepared and presented the bid to host the 2005 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in Edinburgh, which was successfully presented at IJCAI 2001 in Seattle; and was presently a member of the IJCAI 2005 local organising committee (NOTE: IJCAI is the premiere international AI conference). Currently he is working to bring the ECAI conference to the UK

Frans Coenen lives in Liverpool with his wife and three children.

City of Hull

City of Hull, c1979.




Created and maintained by Frans Coenen. Last updated 18 January 2022