Core team

Bristol Digital Futures Institute is a community of University of Bristol academics and external partners with a shared mission: digital innovation for a better future.

Professor Daniel Neyland, Co-Director
Daniel, is a social scientist and Professor of digital futures in the Bristol University Business School. For over 20 years he has worked on collaborative sociotechnical research projects, often working with computer scientists and engineers to come up with new ways of working and thinking. From studies of the everyday life of algorithms through to research on markets for digital data, he has demonstrated a commitment to challenging taken for granted assumptions regarding: the relationship between problems and solutions; what it means to govern and distribute relations of accountability and responsibility; and how we ought to go about the process of doing research.
PA: christophe.burton@bristol.ac.uk
Dr Jenny Knapp, Director of Programmes and Operations
Jenny is responsible for delivering BDFI’s major programmes and directing BDFI operations and our specialist facilities. This includes BDFI’s two Research England funded UKRPIF programmes: a £29m capital investment in BDFI’s buildings and specialist facilities, with £71m matched funding from 28 partners, University of Bristol and Donors; and a £2.5m capital funding for BDFI’s Net Zero Sustainable Campus Testbed. Jenny has a background in interdisciplinary collaborative research, innovation and management both in academia and with industry and governments.
Nick Hall, Facilities and Services Manager
Nick manages the facilities' engineering and technical teams to deliver inclusive facilities and services to a wide range of interdisciplinary research, innovation and commercial projects. He has extensive IT delivery experience across multiple industries.
Sam Hume, Business Development Manager
Sam is responsible for business development in BDFI and is a key contact for current and prospective partners and collaborators. His focus is developing these relationships, a portfolio of research and commercial activities and identifying new areas of opportunity. He brings expertise in digital innovation and partnership development with commercial, industrial, business and governmental stakeholders.

Our academics

Honorary Fellows

Academic Advisory Group

If design is not informed in the very early stages by how it is going to be used in context, it’s very difficult to create technology fit for future society.

Dimitra Simeonidou, Co-Director, BDFI

Creating the kind of digital future we want to be part of requires broad collaboration between diverse partners. For BDFI this is an exciting, but also demanding, challenge.

Daniel Neyland, Co-Director BDFI

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Meet our partners

Find out about the wider BDFI community

Jenny Bobroff, Senior Communications Officer
Jenny leads on BDFI's brand, marketing and communications activities. She has a diverse background in public sector communications and higher education project management.
Karen Howard, Events and Projects Officer
Karen is responsible for a vibrant portfolio of events that support our academic and partner community - from seminars to Symposiums. She also offers assistance on individual BDFI research projects which stem from these interactions.
Chris Burton, Research Administrator
Chris provides administrative support to the institute and its members, including finances, diary management, event support, and governance.
Adrian K. T. Ng, Technical Expert – Immersive Technologies
Adrian is responsible for the immersive front-end of the Reality Emulator and the growth of immersive technologies in BDFI. He has a multi-disciplinary background in engineering, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, and extensive MR project delivery experience across multiple disciplines and technologies.
Ashley Bligh, Technical Expert – Networks
Ashley has been working as a Network Specialist within the UoB IT Network team, where he supported network connectivity across all the university buildings. His responsibilities also included designing, configuring, and deploying new networks, including those at BDFI.