Stewart Miller is an experienced business leader with a background in the aerospace sector. He took up the position of Chief Executive Officer at the National Robotarium in 2021 having previously been Chief Technology Officer of the UK Government’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, in addition to previously working in senior roles at major firms including Leonardo and BAESystems.
Stewart aims to grow the reputation of the National Robotarium to help create greater inward investment and talent attraction to both Scotland and the UK, fulfil national potential for the development of robotics manufacturing, and deliver a thriving robotics industry that elevates the country’s standing in Robotics and AI on the global stage.
He is a member of the Scottish Government Industry Leadership Group for Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing, an advisory board member of the Smart Manufacturing Data Hub, and a non-executive director of the Satellite Application Catapult.
After a full career In the Royal Navy as an aerospace engineer working mainly on Rotary wing Aircraft I then joined a major aerospace defence company charged with delivering support and services across the globe to multiple International and domestic customers of key Avionics and electrical components. This involved managing large contracts and a highly skilled team of logisticians, technicians, projects managers and associated functional support. From there I progressed into the world of digital and ultimately ended up in the IT department of the same Aerospace and Defence company as a Business partner working across multiple sites and all of the major functions. This included finance, engineering, procurement, operations, legal and support and services, a great grounding for this job!
This is a dream job for me! Being part of a team that develops Robotics and AI solutions for the benefit of society, involves working with the brightest talent in this field every day, in a fantastic building, and means partnering with leading edge companies across many sectors. I also get to shape how we operate, help build a fantastic team culture and deliver real value to our customers
I’m extremely privileged!
As a software, AI and robotics engineer with over 20 years of experience in science and industry, I am leading the facility’s growing team of robotics engineers as they test and develop new technologies and systems to address real-world challenges.
I have in-depth, hands-on experience with many robotic systems, including all phases of software development, life-cycle management and DevOps tooling. I co-founded and led engineering teams in several start-up companies in robotics, software architecture and database management systems. Throughout this time, I developed an understanding of the potential of applied emerging technologies for addressing industry challenges.
I’m also passionate about sharing the knowledge and expertise of our talented team to build robotics skills in different sectors, ensuring people are equipped with the tools they need to operate and manage robotics and AI, and promoting the positive benefits of these technologies to all.
… my goal is to get more robots out of the lab and into the wild, and being able to talk directly to industry leaders about their challenges means we can develop safe, practical, and effective robotic technologies that can be seamlessly integrated into society.
Professor Yvan Petillot is Professor of Robotics and Computer Vision and the joint academic lead for the National Robotarium at Heriot-Watt University. He has pioneered and commercialised new algorithms and robotics solutions in the maritime domain over the last 20 years. He has published over 200 publications (citation 6000, h-index 39). A former Royal Society Industry Fellow, he currently chairs the Scottish Research Partnership in Engineering (SRPe) Robotics theme.
Oliver is Professor of AI and Academic Co-Lead at the UK’s National Robotarium. He works in AI, machine learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and is the Director of the Interaction Lab in the Dept of Computer Science at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Prior to joining Heriot-Watt, Oliver previously worked at Edinburgh and Stanford Universities.
Oliver was faculty advisor for the Alana team in the Amazon Alexa Challenge, with his student teams reaching the finals in 2017 and 2018.
Oliver is also co-founder and Chief AI Officer of Alana AI
Professor Adam A. Stokes is a Full Professor and Personal Chair in Bioinspired Engineering, and Deputy Head of the Institute for Integrated Micro and Nano Systems at The University of Edinburgh. He is Deputy Director of the CDT in Robotics and Autonomous Systems in the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics. He is Director of the Soft Systems Group, an interdisciplinary research laboratory of around 20 researchers.
Professor Sethu Vijayakumar holds a Personal Chair in Robotics within the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and is the Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics. Since 2007, he holds the Senior Research Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering, co-funded by Microsoft Research and is also an Adjunct Faculty of the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles and a Visiting Research Scientist at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Labs, Kyoto-Japan. He has a Ph.D.(1998) i
Heriot-Watt University
Edinburgh, Scotland
UK EH14 4AS
Scottish registered charity number SC000278
The University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, Scotland
EH8 9YL
Scottish registered charity number SC005336
