Noel Sharkey

Noel Sharkey
Noel Sharkey in December 2007
Fields	Computer Science, Robotics
Institutions	University of Sheffield
Notable awards	FRSA FIET
Website staffwww.dcs.shef.ac.uk/people/N.Sharkey/

Noel Sharkey is a computer scientist born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is best known to the British public for his appearances on television as an expert on robotics; including the BBC Two television series Robot Wars and Techno Games, and co-hosting Bright Sparks for BBC Northern Ireland. He is emeritus professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield.

Sharkey chairs "The International Committee for Robot Arms Control", an NGO that is seeking an International treaty to prohibit the development and use of autonomous robot weapons – weapons that once launched can select human targets and kill them without human intervention. He is co-founder and co-director of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics.

Sharkey is the founding editor of the academic journal Connection Science, and an editor for Artificial Intelligence Review and Robotics and Autonomous Systems.

Sharkey held a chair in the Department of Computer Science (from 1994) at the University of Sheffield,. and then he was a Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and a Professor of Public Engagement. He was supported by an EPSRC Senior Media Fellowship and a Leverhulme Fellowship of the ethics of battlefield robots.

Previously Sharkey held a number of interdisciplinary research and teaching positions in the US (Yale Computer Science and Stanford Psychology) and the UK (Essex Language and Linguistics, Exeter Computer Science). He was director of the Centre for Cognitive Science at University of Essex and Director of the Centre for Connection Science at the University of Sheffield.

He holds a doctorate in psychology, a doctorate in science, is a chartered electrical engineer, a chartered information technology professional, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET), a fellow of the British Computer Society, a fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).