I am a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Computer Science at Aston University in Birmingham, England. I am a member of the Aston Lab for Intelligent Collectives Engineering (ALICE).

My research is often inspired by biological, social and psychological processes, and advances our understanding about how to build intelligent systems that are embedded in society, learning and adapting on an ongoing basis. My most significant contributions are to the field of self-aware computing, including co-editing the foundational book Self-aware Computing Systems: An Engineering Approach, in 2016. I am particularly interested in the evolution of self-awareness and intentional action in a social context. Through ongoing industrial research collaborations, my work has been applied in areas such as smart camera networks, mobile computing, vehicle fleet management, steel manufacturing, interactive music devices, and cloud computing. My research has been featured in global press, including the BBC, Daily Mail (UK), Hindustan Times (India), and Global Times (China).

I am Director of the Think Beyond Data initiative, part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund, that provides an artificial intelligence R&D capability to businesses across the Midlands of England. I am an Associate Editor of IEEE Technology & Society Magazine, and a Steering Committee member for the IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing and Self-Organizing Systems.

I co-founded Beautiful Canoe, a student social enterprise whose vision is to develop the technology leaders of the future, and delivers bespoke software for a range of clients in the public, private and third sectors. Beautiful Canoe has recently been recognised by the UK national Institute of Coding as a model for student enterprises across the country.

Previously, I was a Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for Research in Computational Intelligence and Applications (CERCIA) in the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham. I obtained my Ph.D. at the University of Birmingham, on the topic of Evolutionary Market-Based Resource Allocation in Decentralised Computational Systems, and under the supervision of Professor Xin Yao and Dr. Paul Marrow at BT. I also hold an MSc in Natural Computation from the University of Birmingham, and before that, I read for a BSc in Computer Science at the University of Leicester.

Phone number: : 0121 204 3190
Email: p.lewis@aston.ac.uk
Room number: MB 211K