King's College London

07/16/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 07/16/2024 01:57

King's PhD students awarded places on the Turing Enrichment Scheme

King's PhD students Andrei-Bogdan Balcau, Chiara Di Bonaventura, and Elfia Bezou-Vrakatseli have been successfully accepted onto the Enrichment Scheme Placement Award delivered by The Alan Turing Institute, the UK's national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. They will take up their in-person places on the scheme in the 2024-25 academic year.

Andrei-Bogdan Balcau's research focuses on the development of a digital twinning framework to verify socio-technical systems' alignment with expected behavioural models.

I hope to form academic relationships that turn into long-lasting collaborations…The Alan Turing Institute's multidisciplinary research agenda would give me the chance to test my hypotheses in different domains. I hope to interact with the Turing's industrial partners and the policy-making teams shaping the future of AI.

Andrei-Bogdan Balcau

For her PhD in the UKRI CDT in Safe and Trusted AI, Chiara Di Bonaventura's research focuses on introducing time-sensitive factors into language processing systems for online abusive language. Speaking of what the Enrichment Scheme offers, she said:

I am looking forward to joining the Turing for its interdisciplinary working environment which offers me a fantastic opportunity to broaden my research.

Chiara Di Bonaventura

Elfia Bezou-Vrakatseli focuses on using argumentation tools to enhance the communication between humans and between humans and AI systems. She told us:

'The Enrichment scheme presented an excellent opportunity to enhance my research both in terms of material resources and collaborative potential. I am very passionate about interdisciplinary approached to AI research... and I felt that my [research] would benefit from an interdisciplinary working environment with people from different backgrounds and working in different fields.

Engaging with the Turing community is an opportunity I envision as instrumental in realising my aspirations, as collaboration is key to expanding one's knowledge and thinking innovatively.'

Now entering its ninth year, the Enrichment scheme is designed for PhD students looking to enhance, refresh, and broaden their research with The Alan Turing Institute's community and in recognition of their place within the UK's growing data science and AI research community. Placement award holders receive funding to physically access The Alan Turing Institute's facilities whilst also building both online communities and facilitating other activities such as attending training courses, going to conferences, and visiting collaborators.

The scheme is designed to support and enhance the current work of a PhD student and students typically take up their place on the scheme in their second or third year. Students on the scheme receive a Training Support Fund and a tiered financial award (based on location) to support them to engage in person at the Turing's office.

The scheme runs annually and applications are expected to open again in late 2024. If you are a PhD student interested in knowing more please contact Catherine Healy.

Find out more about the three King's recipients of the Enrichment Scheme Placement Award below.

Andrei-Bogdan Balcau

Andrei is a PhD candidate at the STAI CDT. He is also a teaching assistant in the Department of Informatics.

His research focuses on the development of a digital twinning framework to verify socio-technical systems' alignment with expected behavioural models. His research interests lie at the intersection of artificial intelligence and economics and his background is in agent-based modelling, machine learning and software engineering.

Andrei holds a first class honours MSci in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) from King's and has previously completed a software development engineering internship at Amazon.

Elfia Bezou-Vrakatseli

Elfia is a PhD Candidate in the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Safe and Trusted AI (STAI CDT). Her expertise is in argumentation and her research focuses on using argumentation tools to enhance the communication between humans and between humans and AI systems.

Elfia holds an MSc cum laude in Artificial Intelligence from Utrecht University and an integrated master's in Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences from the National Technical University of Athens. She has presented her work at conferences and workshops, including the Alan Turing CDT Conference 2023 and the Safe and Trusted AI workshops '22 and '23 where she was awarded a poster prize. Elfia has published her research in journals including Argument & Computation (forthcoming), she has reviewed for multiple venues, and she is an editor of the Online Handbook of Argumentation for AI.

Alongside her research Elfia is currently undertaking an Associateship of King's College London programme and is a Graduate Teaching Assistant at King's as well as a representative of the STAI Equality, Diversity & Inclusion committee.

Chiara Di Bonaventura

Chiara is a PhD Candidate at the STAI CDT. She was awarded the Trustworthy AI Research Grant by the Alan Turing Institute in 2024. Prior to starting her PhD Chiara spent one year as a Research Assistant in Natural Language Processing at Fondazione Ing. Debenedetti (Milan, Italy). Her research focusses on Natural Language Processing, specifically on the detecting and counteraction of online abusive language (e.g. hate speech, bullying, harassment).

Chiara holds an MSc cum laude in Data Science from Bocconi University and was a Visiting Student Researcher at the Bocconi Institute for Data Science and Analytics, and she holds a BSc in Economics and Social Sciences from Bocconi University.