Turing Fellows are scholars with proven research excellence in data science, artificial intelligence (AI) or a related field whose research will be significantly enhanced through active involvement with the Turing network of universities and partners.
Dr Jennifer Collins’ research in the area of criminal law and criminal justice is engaged in projects analysing the changing nature of fraud and the use of AI technologies in the criminal justice system.
Earlier this year Dr Collins was awarded UK Research and Innovation and Arts and Humanities Research Council funding for her project ‘Fraud During a Pandemic: Identifying and Appraising New Challenges for the Criminal Justice Response in England and Wales'. The project maps the landscape of how fraudulent conduct is changing during the pandemic. Fraudsters are capitalising on new vulnerabilities in systems, organisations, and members of the population, increasingly using cyber-enabled schemes to do so.
Another project, ‘Artificial Intelligence in the Criminal Justice System’, shortlisted for the University of Bristol’s UKRI’s Future Leadership Fellowship in November 2020, offers the first systemic analysis of how AI technologies might assist the treatment of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in the criminal justice system.
Dr Jennifer Collins said: “I am delighted to take up a fellowship at the Alan Turing Institute. This fellowship enables me to access a rich and vibrant interdisciplinary data science and AI research community — a key first step in my building a robust interdisciplinary approach to analysing the implication of AI for the criminal justice system.
“The fellowship marks out my long-term intention to partner with innovators in the criminal justice system and business, building effective inter-disciplinary teams which bring fresh ideas to pressing problems. Engagement with multiple stakeholders is key to building adaptable, efficient and principled criminal justice scholarship which has maximum impact in practice.”
The University of Bristol is proud to announce that 39 researchers have been awarded Alan Turing Institute Fellowships. The Bristol Turing Fellows come from a number of disciplines across all Faculties, with expertise ranging from social sciences, health, arts, engineering, computer science, and mathematics demonstrating the power of multidisciplinarity when working on solutions to societal challenges employing new methodologies in machine learning and AI.
Professor Kate Robson Brown, Turing University Lead, said: “Bristol is an established partner of the Alan Turing Institute and this is an exciting time for our new Fellows to take up the opportunity to engage and drive agendas at a national level. The success across the university, in every Faculty, is evidence of the strength and breadth of the expertise at Bristol. We aim to lead the way in supporting multidisciplinary research which seeks to lever benefit to our communities.”
Professor Phil Taylor, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise, said: “Bristol is leading the development of state-of-the-art technologies in data science and AI that are having a profound effect in society. We are proud to support this cohort of Bristol experts who are working on new ways to harness the opportunities offered by these technologies.”