Aghlab is an Associate with the Edinburgh-Stanford Link, which he joined in September 2004. He is currently involved in the academic activities and projects where he provides the designs of 3D virtual environments for e-learning courses. He is a member of VUE (Virtual University of Edinburgh) Regional Planning Authority, and is currently involved in the planning process of the University’s 3D virtual environment and the School of Informatics zoning.

Aghlab provides software interfaces and designs for the Link’s research projects, demonstrations and prototypes. He is also responsible for the Link’s image and online presence through the ES Link portal, the Link’s commercial site and the interactive tech- entrepreneurship student site, which supports the Link's technology entrepreneurship courses.

Aghlab was previously a Graphic Design Consultant for joinvisions.com where he was responsible for laying out design strategies and concepts. He began his career as a trainee architect in Spain where he worked with “Juan Bautista Flores Construcciones” on urban planning projects like urbanización de Gorraiz.

Aghlab is also a PhD candidate in architectural computing at the University of Edinburgh where he has studied and taught since 2001. He graduated from Jordan University, Amman, in 2001 with a BSc in Architectural Engineering, and from the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, in 2002 with an MSc in Design and Digital Media.

Aghlab is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Arab Society for Computer Aided Architectural Design (ASCAAD), and is a registered architect by Jordan Engineers Association.

 

Laura has recently joined the Edinburgh–Stanford Link team as the ERDF project administrator to work with Danny Helson on the newly awarded ERDF (European Regional Development Funding) grant. She is involved in close monitoring of the ERDF budget including the preparation and submission of the ERDF quarterly claims, and consequently the financial audits.

Laura has a background in finance and administration. Most recently she worked in the Research Funds Department of The British Heart Foundation in London, coordinating the control and distribution of public money, awarded via specialised Committees, for heart research at scientific institutes across the UK. Prior to this Laura spent time at the head office of Balfour Beatty Rail Infrastructure Services Ltd, Network Rail and Egg plc.

Laura holds a BSc in Animal Science from University of Leeds.

George is a Senior Programmer with the Edinburgh- Stanford Link, having joined in late 2004. He offers software development assistance to researchers and companies, and creates demonstrations and prototypes showcasing our latest research.

He was previously Senior Analyst Programmer at Bibliocraft, where he headed up a team of developers. During this time George successfully migrated the company's development environment from Windows to Linux and was responsible for the redesign of the company's entire IT infrastructure.

Prior to this George worked on a number of development projects, from satellite set top box technology with leading software developers Bitwise, to mobile phone game development with venture capital-backed mobile entertainment company Digital Bridges.

He began his career as a control systems Project Engineer on various large projects including with Scottish Equitable, the Scottish Widows headquarters, and Perpetual Park in Henley-on- Thames.

George graduated from Napier University in 1994 with a BEng (Hons) in Energy Engineering.

Ray Carrick is seconded full-time to manage the mPOD (multi-lingual personalised object description) project, funded by the Scottish Enterprise Proof of Concept scheme. The project will develop software to produce personalised object descriptions based on user profiling and historical browsing context, utilising innovative natural language generation techniques.

Prior to this Ray worked for Datanautics Ltd (previously Accrue Ltd) as a senior software developer to design and develop a high-end web analytics product used by clients including Citibank, Kodak and Macy's to produce visitor behaviour modelling and website performance analysis.

Before this, he spent ten years as the system development manager for the Dictionaries Division of HarperCollins Publishers. Here he was responsible for the introduction and development of IT strategy and during this time worked on high volume multilingual text corpora, XML editing tools and innovative straight-to-plate printing technologies. In addition, he jointly developed a best-selling style of bilingual dictionary.

Ray holds a BSc in Computational Science from St. Andrews University, where he has worked as both a computer science researcher and university computing manager.

Sue Fitt is seconded full-time to manage the Festival Lexicon development project, funded by the Scottish Enterprise Proof of Concept scheme. Her work includes developing a new lexicon for use with the Festival speech synthesiser, which will enable the system to include regional and international varieties of English.

Sue previously worked for Rhetorical Systems, a leading speech synthesis company spun-out from the University of Edinburgh in mid-2000 and sold recently to US-based Scansoft. At Rhetorical she was responsible for developing the English pronunciation lexicons, which were based on the Unisyn lexical system she first developed at the University of Edinburgh.

Prior to Rhetorical, Sue was based at the university's Centre for Speech Technology research (CSTR), where she worked on various lexicon development projects, including the Unisyn lexicon licensed by Rhetorical, and RP pronunciation lexicons for Chambers and France Telecom. Before joining CSTR, she spent time in Japan teaching English through the JET program.

Sue has a BA in Linguistics from Reading University and a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh.

Danny is the commercial executive with the Edinburgh-Stanford Link, which he joined in early 2006 to oversee the Link's ERDF-funded activities in Scotland. The Link was awarded additional funding from ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) to help companies in Scotland's less affluent areas access its world-class research and strategic R&D expertise.

Danny has almost 20 years of sales experience in both the UK and Australia. He began his career with Nestle UK, first as a Territory Manager and later as Area Sales Manager. During his 12 years with Nestle he spent time at the company's National Training Centre where he taught negotiating skills, personal skills and advanced selling skills.

In 1995 Danny relocated to Perth, Australia, where he became Sales and Distribution Manager of a national food group, before joining American Greetings. Since returning to Scotland, Danny has completed an MBA at Edinburgh Business School, taking electives in small business and strategy. He also works on a voluntarily basis with a number of small not-for-profit community groups, helping with business planning issues and strategy.