Welcome to the September edition of the APRIL AI Hub Newsletter!
As autumn arrives, I'm excited to share developments from our research frontiers and vibrant APRIL community. Our commitment to enabling inclusive, collaborative workplace remains central. This summer showcased our team's diverse talents through engaging lunch-and-learns and our spectacular talent show featuring dance, singing, and magic alongside celebrating research-ready interns. These moments remind us innovation thrives when everyone feels valued.
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Fresh from UKAIRS 2025, we're energised by the incredible community that strengthened our inclusive research culture. These connections transform individual expertise into collective breakthroughs.
On the research front, I'm particularly excited about advances in beyond-CMOS computing, exploring skyrmions - topologically protected magnetic textures with immense promise for next-generation architectures. By integrating AI-driven approaches with spintronic device modeling, we're uncovering energy-efficient computation pathways that could revolutionize electronic systems design.
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Dr. Santhosh S Sivasubramani
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APRIL Second Annual Summit!
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The APRIL AI Hub's Second Annual Summit will be held on Wednesday, 26th November 2025 at One Birdcage Walk. We are looking forward to the opportunity for our researchers, seed funding grant holders, and Google DeepMind Research Ready Interns to showcase the fantastic things they have achieved since we launched last year.
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There will be panel discussions throughout the day focusing on: AI for Electronic Materials, Device Engineering, AI-Driven Digital Circuits Design Automation, and AI-Driven Multi-Physics Optimization for Predictive Modeling. There will also be poster sessions & demos presented by our community.
If you would like to book your ticket, please head over to Eventbrite to secure your place at this exciting event.
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The APRIL AI Hub had a great time attending and participating in the UK AI Research Symposium (UKAIRS) Responsible Ai 2025 Conference! UKAIRS invited contributions from researchers from a diverse set of disciplines including computer science, engineering, social sciences and humanities, with the goal of shaping the UK’s research priorities, identifying cross-fertilisation opportunities, and informing the narrative around the challenges to delivering AI that benefits society and the economy.
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The APRIL AI Hub team including Co-Director Dame Prof. Wendy Hall
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The ‘Festival of Ideas’ was a brilliant opportunity for our researchers and summer Google DeepMind and Sabanci University interns to share their research with the community and develop connections with peers across the UK. It was great to see all the UK Research and Innovation EPSRC funded AI Hubs together, and hear updates about all their fascinating work. We were also delighted to catch up in person with our Co-Director Dame Prof. Wendy Hall!
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Tune into APRIL Conversations Podcast
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We’re thrilled to have launched our new podcast: APRIL Conversations
In our first episode, we are joined by our amazing summer Google DeepMind and Sabanci University interns on their final day with us, listen here. In our second episode, we’re joined by APRIL researchers, Dr. Alexandros Keros and Dr. Atish Dixit for a thought-provoking conversation on one of today’s most pressing debates: Is AI replacing us? Listen here.
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RAEng Internship Celebration
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Hub Manager, Anastasia, and Google DeepMind Research Ready interns
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The interns had the opportunity to present their research during a poster exhibition, showcasing the outcomes of their projects. It was fantastic to reconnect, reflect on the impact of the programme, and look ahead to the next generation of research-ready talent.
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APRIL and Google DeepMind’s Paul Komarek and Rebecca McKelvey
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Pratibha visting local schools across India
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During a recent visit home to India, Research Associate Pratibha Verma visited local schools to donate books to students. It’s amazing to see our outreach initiatives supporting young learners and making a positive impact across the globe!
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Matthew Youngman
The APRIL AI Hub welcomes Matthew who is one of APRIL's first PhD Researchers, where he will focus on digital design, hardware-software integration, and AI frameworks. He earned his MEng in General Engineering with Electronics from Durham University in 2024, completing his dissertation on security vulnerabilities in cloud-based SoC accelerators. During his degree, Matthew was awarded the Institute of Engineering and Technology Diamond scholarship for his STEM outreach efforts. Outside of work, he enjoys racket sports - having coached tennis for several years - and is settling into life in Edinburgh.
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Eleni Tselepi
Eleni has recently graduated with an MEng in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Thessaly, Greece. During her studies, she gained experience across multiple domains, including FPGA design, embedded systems, and exploring ICs aging and long-term reliability issues. Her research interest also extend to generative AI, and specifically on convolutional Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). In her free time, she enjoys going to the gym, visiting museums, reading self-improvement books, and travelling around the world to discover new cultures.
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Lai Gan
Lai joins the APRIL AI Hub as a PhD student. His goal is to embed AI-driven, automated EDA workflows into day-to-day experimental practice - linking instrument control, data capture, database-backed storage, quality checks, modelling, and closed-loop orchestration into one reproducible pipeline. Current work includes robust electroforming detection and wafer-scale automation across multiple memristive material systems. Lai completed a five-year MEng in Electronics & Electrical Engineering at the University of Edinburgh, where his postgraduate studies covered signal processing, data analysis, and software/hardware programming. He has built end-to-end tooling that integrates probe-station control with an SQL-based data layer to support scalable, queryable experiments. Outside work, he enjoys strategy games and the occasional online deep-dive.
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Eva Hita Sogorb
Eva’s PhD will aim to combine APRIL’s AI and electronics research with the field of neural interfaces. I graduated from University College London (UCL) in 2025 with a BEng in Biomedical Engineering, completing my dissertation in machine learning for the prediction of the tau protein in Alzheimer’s disease. During my degree, I was Vice-President of MedTech UCL, the largest student-run medical technology society in Europe, where amongst many great experiences, I had the chance to found a scholarship in partnership with DataCamp to help students develop coding skills. I was also a Google DeepMind Research Ready Intern at the APRIL AI Hub last summer, which was so much fun I decided to stay for a PhD. In my free time, I enjoy playing sports, reading, playing piano, and drawing, as well as going out with my friends.
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