Meet the 2023 Lecturer

Meet Professor Mike Wooldridge – the 2023 Lecturer for the CHRISTMAS LECTURES from the Royal Institution.

Professor Mike Wooldridge looks into the camera with a blue lit background behind him
Image credit: Paul Wilkinson

Mike Wooldridge is an academic and author specialising in Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

As an academic, he is a professor of AI at the University of Oxford, where he served as Head of Department of Computer Science from 2014 to 2021; he is also Director for AI at The Alan Turing Institute in London. He has received multiple awards for both research and education, including in 2020, the Lovelace Medal from the British Computer Society – the leading award for a UK computer scientist – and in 2021 the Outstanding Educator Award from the Association for the Advancement of AI (AAAI).

From 2014-16, Mike was President of the European Association for AI, and from 2015-17 he was President of the International Joint Conference on AI (IJCAI). He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Artificial Intelligence, the leading journal for AI, established more than 50 years ago and has been invited to give evidence on matters relating to AI to multiple government committees.

As an author, he has written nine books, which have been translated nine times. His books include two popular science introductions to AI: the Ladybird Expert Guide to AI (Penguin, 2018) in the iconic British book series, and The Road to Conscious Machines (Pelican, 2020). 

Mike gives frequent public lectures on AI, including at the Hay Festival and Cheltenham Science Festival and is regularly interviewed by the media.