Imagined Futures

Beatriz Costa Gomes is currently a Turing Research Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, working in the Data Science for Science programme.

The first contact with the Turing was as an Enrichment Student, starting in October 2019. She was a PhD student at the University of Manchester, where she started her final year of a PhD in Bioimage Analysis. She is the creator of the ALFRED software (Advanced Labelling, Fitting, Recognition and Enhancement of Data), a tool to analyse pathological mutations in neurons. Before moving to the UK in 2016, Bea completed her integrated Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Coimbra, in Portugal, where she is originally from. Her master’s thesis was on computational modelling of neuronal growth. She has always been interested in applying computational methods and solutions to further understand neurodegenerative diseases.

After the PhD, Bea worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate within the ASG programme. As a science communicator, Bea is one of the hosts of the Turing Podcast, and often speaks at events for all ages to talk about science and scientific careers. On her free time, she also does amateur stand-up comedy.

Tania Duarte is the Founder of We and AI, a UK non-profit focusing on better AI literacy for social inclusion, in order to facilitate critical thinking and more inclusive decision-making about AI. Programmes include Better Images of AI – a collaboration with BBC R&D and a global community of academics, activists, institutes and artists. Tania is on the Founding Editorial Board for the Springer AI and Ethics Journal and on the Public Engagement and Ecosystem Strategy Advisory Board of The Alan Turing Institute. Tania is a Lead for TLA Tech for Disability, a member of the IEEE P7015 Data and AI Literacy, Skills, and Readiness working group, and was named one of WIAIE’s 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics 2021. Prior to this, Tania spent 30 years in consultancy, business and marketing management roles in various industries, latterly in tech and startups.

Andrew Fitzgibbon has been closely involved in the delivery of three groundbreaking computer vision and machine learning systems over two decades. In 2000, he was computer vision lead on the Emmy-award-winning 3D camera tracker “Boujou”; in 2009 he introduced large-scale synthetic training data to Kinect for Xbox 360, and in 2019 was science lead on the team that shipped fully articulated hand tracking on HoloLens 2. His passion is bringing the power of mathematics to the crucible of real-world engineering. He has numerous research awards, including ten “best paper” prizes at leading conferences, and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and of the Royal Society.

Lauren Beukes is the award-winning South African author of six novels, a short story collection and NYT-best-selling graphic novels, including Zoo City which won the Arthur C Clarke Award and the Kitschies Red Tentacle, The Shining Girls, now a major AppleTV show with Elisabeth Moss, and, most recently, the reality-bending mother-daughter-dreamworm novel, Bridge. Her work has been translated into 25 languages and she’s also worked in kids animation, TV scriptwriting and directed an award-winning documentary.