Professor Darryl Charles

Overview

Darryl Charles joined Ulster University in 2001 and is a member of the Computer Science Research Institute. Darryl is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. His research background is in computational intelligence and he has applied his expertise in this area to serious games and apps as well as a number of research contexts such as intelligent interactive storytelling, machine learning in games, user modelling, cloud computing, and connected health. Recent research has been mainly focused on health contexts and creating software with natural user interfaces to help motivate people to engage with learning, exercise and rehabilitation. Since 1998 he has had over 80 papers published in peer reviewed journals and conferences as well as an authored book entitled Biologically Inspired Artificial Intelligence for Computer Games.

Darryl graduated from Queens University Belfast with a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Hons.) in 1988. After qualifying as a teacher at Stranmillis College, Belfast, he taught Technology and Design to A-Level at Portadown College until 1995 and during this spell completed an MSc in Microelectronics and Microcomputer Applications at the University of Ulster. After a spell as Head of IT at Cox Green School in Maidenhead he returned to full-time education to study for a PhD on Unsupervised Artificial Neural Networks at the University of Paisley. While completing his PhD he was appointed as a lecturer and subsequently as a senior lecturer in Computing at Paisley before returning to Northern Ireland in 2001.