Meet the team

Paul is now Director of the National Innovation Centre for Data after serving as our Research Director. His research interests centre on the design of integrated data analytics solutions and exploiting functional programming for stream processing. As well as being our Director, Paul is also Professor of Computer Science at Newcastle University and a Fellow of The Alan Turing Institute. 

Richie joined us recently in the new role of Technical Director. He is interested in innovation and leadership and loves nothing more than asking how? and why? over and over again in order to identify real business need. When he isn't busy figuring out how data science can deliver value to clients, Richie enjoys music, sewing, homebrewing and fly fishing.

Georgia manages all of our structures and processes, allowing successful delivery of the business plan. She also oversees contract and client relationship management, governance, HR and reporting. Georgia holds a degree in Biomedical Sciences and has a background in operations and recruitment. She's also a former ballroom dancing champion!

Stuart is our dedicated Venue Technician at The Catalyst. He provides specialist AV and IT support to organisations throughout the building, covering everything from day-to-day meetings to large events and conferences. When he isn't busy dashing from event to event at The Catalyst, Stuart enjoys surfing and climbing, and is also an experienced sound engineer.

Paul joined us from Newcastle University's School of Engineering, where he was a lecturer in Intelligent Transport Systems. Here, his work consists predominantly of general data analysis, geospatial data analysis, and data visualisation. When he's not at work, Paul spends his time looking after a small clowder of feral cats that adopted him several years ago.

Jacek (yat-sek)'s background is in scalable computing, with broad experience in workflows, application deployment, recomputation and programming. His PhD focused on adaptive deployment of component-based applications in distributed systems. He combines his role at the National Innovation Centre for Data with academic research at Newcastle University.

Stephen’s background is scalable computing, specialising in data analytics, software deployment, containerisation, design and development for the cloud and programming. He has worked across a variety of sectors from international airlines to local authority town planning.

Matt’s background is in statistics, specialising in spatiotemporal statistics, Bayesian learning, natural language processing, causal inference, R programming and machine learning. His PhD centred on multivariate space-time modelling of climate data in collaboration with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

Peter’s background is in computer and software engineering, having previously worked as an R&D software developer for a multinational IT company. His PhD focused on design, implementation, and automated computational placement of distributed streaming applications for real-time data analysis.

With a background in operations management Louise changed careers in 2020 when she gained her Data Science MSc from Newcastle University. She now works on variety of data science projects including, natural language processing, generative ai, data analytics and data science project scoping.  Louise is passionate about running and continues to recruit members to the Catalyst Run Club. 

Jordan joined us from Newcastle University's School of Computing and has a background in artificial intelligence strategies. His PhD resulted in a curated dataset for DNA technology, used in conjunction with machine learning and optimisation to inform better protocols and generate designs. When he isn't working, Jordan enjoys electric guitar, video games, and going to the gym.

Antonia’s technical background combines statistics and computer science. Her PhD focused on scaling Bayesian modelling techniques. She is interested in machine learning and she is currently programming in R and Scala.

Akash has a background in electronics and communication engineering and gained his MSc in Data Science in 2022. He has experience in industry as well as academia and has particular expertise in data problems involving computer vision and machine learning. When he isn't busy solving such problems, Akash enjoys photography and travel.

Fergus joined us from Newcastle University's School of Engineering and has a background in environmental modelling. His PhD investigated the impact of using global datasets for flood inundation modelling and involved designing a cloud-based framework for running simulations. When he isn't busy coding, Fergus enjoys kayaking, hill-walking, surfing and climbing.

Mac’s background is statistics; he possesses considerable experience in Bayesian inference, time series forecasting, meta-analysis and modelling biological systems, which he acquired during his PhD research in the field of smart farming. His current business interests are centred around developing AI tools. In his spare time, he enjoys cooking and playing chess.