Dr Paul Miller from Belfast has been announced as the Interim Director of the GII, which is an expansion of the Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT) at Queen’s.

The project, which is funded by the Belfast Region City Deal, aims to transform Northern Ireland’s digital economy by substantially increasing both the volume and range of digital innovation taking place within the region.

By 2025, the GII is set to witness a substantial boost in the number of experts at its Titanic Quarter site and within the university, leading to a transformative impact on the utilization of digital technologies to address societal challenges. This expansion will encompass current researchers stationed at ECIT, in addition to the recruitment of new positions and the integration of individuals from diverse companies and external collaborators.

As the interim Director of GII, Dr Miller will be coordinating and facilitating the growth of GII’s research and innovation activities and ensuring that the GII continues to grow its world class core discipline expertise. This includes cyber security, advanced wireless technologies, data science/analytics and scalable computing.

He will help the team to build on these to support new multidisciplinary activities in areas such as food security/sustainability and health science.

Commenting on his new post, Dr Miller said: “I am delighted to have been appointed Interim Director for the GII. This is a very exciting time for Queen’s and for research and innovation led growth in Northern Ireland.

“I look forward to working with a mix of researchers who are already based at ECIT, as well as new staff members who will be co-locating from a wide range of companies and external partners.

“Together we will continue to develop our core expertise across cyber security, advanced wireless technologies, data science/analytics. Importantly, we will also build and expand our expertise in a multi-disciplinary environment as our skilled workforce will include experts from many sectors who will be developing research in areas such as health data, agri-food and Fintech.

“I am also looking forward to working closely with our key stakeholders – the international research community, industry leaders, government policy makers and start-ups and SMEs from around the world. It is these people who are key to our success and it is vital that we all continue to work together to continue developing cutting edge research and solutions to so many real world problems.”

Dr Miller completed his degree and PhD in pure and applied physics at Queen’s and initially worked as a Research Fellow in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Queen’s.

He then progressed to Research Scientist and Senior Research Scientist, with the Defence, Science and Technology Organization in Adelaide, Australia. 

In 1999 he returned to Queen’s as a Lecturer, later progressing to senior lecturer in the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.  He has been a Reader since 2018. Dr Miller is currently Deputy Director of the Centre for Secure Information Technologies and Director of the CyberAI Hub at QUB.

His main research focus is on the application of artificial intelligence to cyber and physical security, biomedical image analysis and animal behaviour analysis. 

Professor Máire O’Neill, Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) Director, added: “I am delighted to congratulate Paul on his new role as Interim Director. It’s an exciting time as we drive forward our core research areas, as well as amplifying our world class multidisciplinary research. As Director of CSIT, I look forward to continuing to contribute my expertise and working alongside colleagues to make the Institute a place where local and global companies, entrepreneurs and researchers will come together to lead the way in digital innovation.”

As part of the Belfast Region City Deal, the UK Government and Northern Ireland Executive are providing £170m funding towards three Queen’s-led Centres including GII, the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre (AMIC) and the Institute of Research Excellence for Advanced Clinical Healthcare (iREACH Health), while an additional £30m will be invested by the University and its partners.