Dr Kamran Soomro

Qualifications:

PhD, FHEA

Position:

Associate Professor of Artificial Intelligence

Department:

School of Computing and Creative Technologies

Telephone:

+441173283279

About me

I am an interdisciplinary researcher and Associate Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the School of Computing and Creative Technologies at UWE Bristol. My work sits at the intersection of computing, urban planning, and civic governance, drawing on methods from data planning, generative AI, and digital twins to address complex societal challenges. I hold a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Software Engineering from the National University of Sciences and Technology and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of the West of England. Over the past decade, I have focused on bridging Data Science and Urban Informatics, with a growing emphasis on participatory approaches that bring communities, data, and AI into shared decision-making.

You can view my personal website here.

Research Interests

My research is inherently cross-disciplinary, spanning AI, urban informatics, and civic technology. It brings together generative AI, deep learning, and large language models (LLMs) with knowledge engineering, big data, and natural language processing to support smart cities, participatory urban governance, and evidence-informed public decision-making. I am particularly interested in how computational methods — especially digital twins and LLMs — can mediate between technical systems and the communities they serve.

Research Projects

My research portfolio reflects a sustained engagement with EU- and UK-funded projects that cross computational, urban, and social domains, including EU FP7 neuGRID, urbanAPI, and DECUMANUS, H2020 Smarticipate and CURE, and the HEU GREENGAGE project. Following the completion of GREENGAGE, I am currently engaged in impact development activities, working with local communities to disseminate the knowledge generated through the project — a process that extends research beyond academia into civic practice. I have also led machine learning Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) bridging industry and academia, and am an active member of the EPSRC Peer Review College.

Teaching

I have taught a wide range of courses, including Databases, Web Programming, Principles of Computing, and Web Security, and have supervised approximately 50 undergraduate and postgraduate projects. I currently teach Data Mining and Data Visualisation in Business Intelligence. I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). My teaching similarly cuts across disciplinary boundaries, pairing technical foundations with their application to business, civic, and societal problems.

Leadership and Engagement

My engagement extends beyond research and teaching into mentorship, scholarly service, and public-sector practice. I mentor through the UWE Women’s Research Mentoring Scheme and the Elevate Mentoring scheme, and I will serve as Area Chair for NeurIPS 2026. I also bring industry experience as a Data Scientist with the NHS, where I contributed to projects focused on improving the quality of patient care — work that directly informs my interest in applying AI to public-sector challenges.

Area of expertise

• AI & Computation: Generative AI · Large Language Models · Deep Learning · Knowledge Engineering · Natural Language Processing

• Data & Urban Science: Big Data · Data Science · Digital Twins · Smart Cities · Urban Informatics

• Society & Governance: Participatory Urban Governance · Civic Technology · Knowledge Management · Data Visualisation for Decision-Making

Publications

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