Each month, the Graduate School is sharing a Student Spotlight with our postgraduate research community, highlighting the amazing research being undertaken by our postgraduate researchers.
Our Student Spotlight for November is Odartey Lamptey, who is undertaking a full time PhD in Computing.
My research focusses on using Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) to enhance trust, transparency, trustworthiness, and understanding in the application of AI and machine learning algorithms. This application is in the field of public security, where the threat of terrorist attacks has been increasing, causing discomfort and unrest among the civilian population. Governments are increasingly directing their attention toward AI technology to enhance public security, recognizing the need to understand how AI technologies make decisions.
Building upon this research, I successfully submitted a conference paper to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Conference on Artificial Intelligence in 2023. This paper, titled 'Neural Network Based Identification of Terrorist Groups,' delved into the intricate process by which a neural network makes decisions in identifying terrorist groups. The research lead to a compelling conclusion; the adoption of explainable models can significantly enhance the interpretability of what are often referred to as 'black-box' models. A ‘black-box’ refers to a system or model that produces useful information without revealing its inner workings on how it arrived at its decision.
After the paper was accepted, I excitedly moved forward to create a poster for its presentation. Having previously participated in a workshop on the Principles of Successful Poster Design via the Graduate School Development Programme (GSDP), I was well-prepared to craft three distinct poster designs. The first poster was featured at the annual School of Computing Showcase in 2023, focusing on the topic 'Identifying Terrorist Groups Using Explainable AI.' This showcase took place on April 26, 2023, and I had the honour of winning the 'Best Poster' award. The next poster design accompanied my accepted paper, which was presented in California, USA, from June 5th to 7th 2023, by my supervisor, Dr Alexander Gegov. The final poster design was showcased at the Faculty of Technology Research & Innovation event held on June 6, 2023.
I would like to express my gratitude to the GSDP and its dedicated staff for their pivotal role in bringing out the best in my poster designs.
Odartey is also the Assistant International Student Representative for the University of Portsmouth PGR Society.
If you would like to feature in our student spotlight section please email graduate.school@port.ac.uk to discuss this further.