CDT- NGCM Seminar with Andrew Lawson
Andrew was an ICSS student at the University of Southampton; ICSS was the predecessor to CDT-NGCM. Andrew finished his PhD in Southampton in 2017, working with Prof Christopher Sachrajda and Dr Andreas Juttner. His thesis was titled ‘Exploratory Lattice QCD Studies of Rare Kaon Decays’.
Andrew talked about his work as a software engineer for an autonomous vehicle start-up called FiveAI: https://five.ai/
At Five AI they are developing cutting-edge technology to power self-driving vehicle services in Europe. The development of such technology requires a fine balance of both high-quality research and rigorous engineering to deliver technology that is both safe and reliable. In his talk he discussed the transition from working in academia to working in the autonomous vehicle industry, with some focus on how his PhD prepared him for such a transition.
Within FiveAI he has worked on multiple projects, including localisation and object detection & tracking. He spoke about his work in these areas, as well as giving a broader overview of the software stack that the company is developing. This highlighted some of the interesting technical challenges that must be overcome, and showcased the opportunities for PhD graduates at FiveAI.
The seminar took place in the Mountbatten Seminar Room, Highfield Campus on 18 October 2019.