Our Team

Brian Hills

Chief Executive Officer of The Data Lab

Brian has 17 years’ experience in analytics and software engineering, across domains including Telecoms, IT and Digital. He joins the Data Lab from Skyscanner where he launched and grew the Business Intelligence team. Prior to Skyscanner, Brian held analytics and engineering roles with Sumerian and HP.

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Manolo Perez

Head of Operations and Finance

Manolo is a qualified Chartered Accountant with over 20 years financial experience in the University Sector. He joined The Data Lab in January 2015 having previously worked at various departments within the University of Edinburgh.

Heather Thomson

Head of Skills

Heather has 12 years experience in project and programme management roles, in both the public and private sector with extensive experience in the development and delivery of training.  Prior to joining The Data Lab, she managed a £5 million research programme at the University of Edinburgh with a strong focus on training and capacity building in data skills.

Mark Wilkinson

Head of Business Development

Mark has more than 25 years’ experience in global data and analytics sector, he has managed business teams which include start-ups and established organisations; with an aim to support clients in achieving strategic business objectives by maximising value from data and analytics. Mark is focused on helping The Data Lab deliver their mission to maximise the value of data for Scotland. His role includes identifying future strategic funding opportunities from both public and private sector and spearheading collaborations with external partners across industry; public sector and academia.

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Alison Orr

Head of Marketing and Communications

Alison has over sixteen years’ experience in marketing and communications, in both public and private sector roles. Prior to working at The Data Lab, Alison managed the marketing and communications at the Scotland 5G Centre. She has worked in a variety of sectors including innovation centres, higher education and tourism. As a marketing and communications expert, she is passionate about audience engagement, customer experience and developing relevant and engaging content.

Adam Turner

Business Development Executive

Adam is an experienced Commercial Development professional who joins The Data Lab from IBM where he was a specialist in the Watson Cognitive Platform, providing support to organisations embarking on their Artificial Intelligence transformation projects. Drawing on his experience, Adam’s focus will be assisting organisations through their data driven innovation projects.

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Darran Gardner

Business Development Executive

Darran is an innovation advisor and knowledge exchange professional with experience of working across the private and public sectors. A former business journalist and management consultant, he has over two decades experience of working in Scotland’s tech and business community. Managing The Data Lab’s Glasgow Hub he is responsible for our Collaborative Innovation Service, which supports industry collaboration and academia, as well our Moonshot fund focused on data-driven innovation in support of Scotland’s Net Zero ambitions 

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Sandra Ripley

Business Development Executive

Sandra believes strongly in the power of a good data strategy and supporting skill set in driving business success.  She is delighted to be part of the team at The Data Lab working with Scottish businesses to support growth of their data skills set.  She has extensive cross-industry experience working in business development and marketing roles.

Max Baczynski

Business Development Officer

Max joined The Data Lab in November 2021 to oversee the MSc Industrial Placements Programme and help connect businesses with emerging Data Science and AI talent. With over 6 years’ experience in the tech education space, he previously worked for the coding bootcamp Makers and built partnerships with companies from Deloitte to Deliveroo. Max will build on this experience to help scope out suitable short data science projects for organisations across Scotland.

Saleh Seyedzadeh

Principal Data Scientist – Smart Manufacturing Data Hub

Saleh is a Data Scientist with a wealth of experience working in academia, the public sector and industry across different sectors, from manufacturing to healthcare, both in the UK and internationally. He holds a PhD in Data Science in Built Environment from the University of Strathclyde. His research has been published in more than 60 high-impact research outputs and has been cited more than 1100 times. He works with multidisciplinary teams of researchers, engineers and data scientists to deliver cutting-edge digital and data science solutions.

Vyron Christodoulou

Data Scientist

Vyron is a Data Scientist with both academic and industry experience. He is interested in Machine Learning, Open Source Software, automation and Machine Learning and Operations (MLOps). He has joined The Data Lab from the British Geological Survey (BGS), where he worked with multiple groups and types of data, applying software engineering practices and ML methods to make publicly accessible and reproducible research and science. He holds an MSc and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence where he worked with satellite data in anomaly detection and data drift.

Alfred Tiley

Data Scientist

Alfred is a Data Scientist with an accomplished background in astronomy academia and a variety of experience in the public sector, focused on transport and healthcare. He holds a PhD in astronomy from the University of Oxford, and held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Forrest Research Foundation, Australia. Alfred joined The Data Lab from the New South Wales Ministry of Health where he applied data science and engineering techniques to maintain and develop a dynamic simulation model used to evaluate the system-wide benefits of State health initiatives.

Malcolm Price

Senior Project Manager

Malcolm started his career as a software engineer before moving into project management. He has over 20 years managing technology development projects in various sectors. Malcolm is a great believer in collaboration and the ‘power of together’ to bring success.

Anna Scott

Programme Manager – Professional Development

Anna has worked in the higher education sector for more than 15 years in external relations roles. Anna joins The Data Lab from the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science , where she led on programmes of activity designed to connect doctoral research with policy and practice, working with the Scottish Government, Skills Development Scotland and others on the delivery of national industry-focused skills training initiatives.

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Marian Dunbar

Skills Coordinator

Marian has more than 20 years of experience as a University Administrator working with students and academics in a variety of roles. She joins The Data Lab from the Cyber Academy, Edinburgh Napier University, where she supported a range of training, education and dissemination activities on cyber security.

Cheryl Stewart

Doctoral Programme Lead

Cheryl joined The Data Lab in 2016 and now leads the Doctoral Programme which includes Industrial Doctorates and PhD Placements. Previously she has worked for the University of Edinburgh for over 10 years primarily in an HR capacity.

Nuria Fraile-Diaz

Product Manager for the DDI Skills Gateway (Data Skills for Work)

Nuria has been working in the University of Edinburgh for the last 17 years and has a vast experience managing projects across different schools. Predominately related to Online Learning Environments and worked as coordinator for the University of Edinburgh MOOC team. In her last role, based in CSE, she interconnected learning technology tools to research projects, linking knowledge exchange among research and development teams.

Sonia Hadj Said

Programme Administrator for the DDI Skills Gateway (Data Skills for Work)

Sonia has joined The Data Lab from a private equity firm where she worked across FOH, Events and Finance departments. She graduated from City, University of London with MA in International Journalism specialising in print publishing with focus on Humanitarian Reporting. Sonia is a passionate writer and spends her free time working on (always unfinished) books and poems.

Katie Thomson

Programme Administrator for the DDI Skills Gateway (Data Skills for Work)

Katie is an experienced administrator and joined us from the Clyde River Foundation where she carried out eco-education projects and river based fieldwork. She graduated from the University of Aberdeen with a first class MSci Biological Sciences, where her research focused on using models to explore cognition in a wild population of birds. 

Hannah Gordon

Project Manager for Skills

Hannah has worked in the education sector for a number of years, starting out originally in the arts before joining the public sector. She joins Data Lab from British Council, where she got her first taste of working with data through monitoring and evaluating a multi-million pound foreign aid schools programme. She is a qualified Project Manager with extensive events management experience, and loves planning things in general.

Jacqueline Huynh

Skills Administrator

Jacqueline has ten years of experience teaching abroad (South Korea, Uruguay, Spain). She has a passion for learning and championing accessibility for marginalised groups. Her recent work within libraries and interest in coding has brought her to The Data Lab with ambitious goals. In her spare time, she enjoys knitting and pottery.

Sara Orr-Saiz

Placement Programme Coordinator

Sara joined The Data Lab in October 2021 to oversee the MSc Industrial Placements Programme and help students develop their knowledge and expertise and build their confidence. She joins us from Equate Scotland where for seven years she supported and promoted women in STEM in Scotland, through their Student Network and training and consultancy. Sara has a background in education and gender and has worked in the third sector in four countries for over 15 years.

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Gordon Johnstone

Head of DataFest

Gordon leads DataFest, Scotland’s showcase for data science and artificial intelligence on the international stage. He is a creative digital professional with demonstrable success working in the third and private sectors.

Isabella Melking

Communications and Marketing Officer

Isabella oversees Communications and PR at The Data Lab. She is a communications and engagement professional with experience working in higher education and social enterprises, designing and implementing projects and activities to engage a variety of audiences.

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Sarah Mackenzie

Digital Platforms and Content Lead

Sarah is an experienced digital marketing professional with a focus on analytics and strategy development. She joins the Data Lab from a freelance content management and media marketing role, where she provides solutions for some of Scotland’s key tourism and hospitality hosts.

Moira Stewart

Finance Administrator

Moira has a wealth of experience in the area of finance. Her last role was as a Finance Officer in Chemistry at the University. Her main experience comes from being a Secondary School Bursar for 26 years in a large Edinburgh Community school, and she is keen to develop important links with schools about Data Science.

Samantha Penn

PA & Office Manager

Sam has extensive experience in higher education administration, having previously worked for QMU, the University of Edinburgh & Edinburgh Napier University, in various PA, finance, HR & secretarial roles. She has supported both senior central services and academic staff and also students at all levels & managed a variety of events including workshops, conferences & seminars.

Kristina Mutch

Solicitor

Kristina deals with drafting and negotiating contracts and providing legal advice in respect of all aspects of The Data Lab’s activities. Prior to joining The Data Lab, Kristina worked for a commercial law firm, providing specialist advice to a wide range of private, public and third sector clients.

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Amy Lippok

HR Coordinator

Amy is a HR professional with a strong background in Higher Education. Amy joined The Data Lab in 2021 from The University of Edinburgh after having worked with many HR Departments in various Schools and Colleges. Before joining The University of Edinburgh, Amy specialised in Compliance within the IT Recruitment sector.

Craig Paterson​

Executive Education Advisor

Craig has 25 year of industry experience working in Utilities and Financial Services and specialises in Business, IT and Digital strategy development and execution. Craig is developing Executive Education for The Data Lab.

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Iain Henderson

Senior Solutions Architect

Iain is an experienced solutions architect with in-depth experience in data management and use. He has worked in Financial Services, Utilities, Retail and Data Services in both enterprises and start-ups. His particular focus and specialism is CRM, Analytics, Privacy Management and Data Empowerment from the individual/ customer perspective.

Margery McConnell

Senior Solutions Architect

Margery’s experience spans many roles, from global and UK businesses to a scaling-up FinTech. A passionate Data evangelist, she recognises that for every business, real transformation depends on effectively combining the potential of advanced technology with the capabilities and enthusiasm of individuals. She brings this approach to her work with clients in both the TORCH Programme and Executive Education at the DataLab.

Steph Wright

Head of Scottish AI Alliance Support Circle

Steph is a data science enthusiast with specific experience of the healthcare domain. She has been extensively involved in developing and building collaborations across organisations as well as experience in project and programme management. Steph has a diverse background ranging from astrophysics to genomics in academia and film & TV to dance in the arts and the third sector. Recently Steph led on Data Lab’s efforts in support of the Scottish Government in developing Scotland’s AI Strategy and going forward will be working on delivering its vision for Scotland. She is also the Director of Health & Wellbeing Engagement as part of the Business Development team.

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Dawn Hunter

Project Manager

Dawn is a Project Manager with over a decade’s experience in managing a diverse range of digital, civic society, events and marketing projects. She is an accredited PRINCE2 Practitioner and APMG Agile Project Management Practitioner. Dawn holds an MSc with Distinction in Digital Marketing, where her research examined the effects of digitalisation of SMEs in Scotland. A lifelong AI enthusiast, Dawn believes that people should be at the centre of digital transformation and is an ardent believer in the power of AI for good.

Will Millership

Communications and Events Officer

Will is a communications professional with over 8 years of experience with a number of organisations across different industries. He spent 4 years in Prague where he worked as Communications Manager for artificial intelligence research and development company GoodAI and was the Director of the $5 million General AI Challenge. With a background in Human Geography, Will is particularly interested in the ways in which AI  influences people, culture and society.

Katie Garden

Administrative Support Officer

Katie is an experienced administrator who joins us as The Scottish AI Alliance and Business Development team administrator. She graduated from The University of Arts London with a first class BA in Costume Design for Theatre and Film.

Dr Jo Watts

Jo is the Founder and CEO of Effini, a data solutions company focused on supporting organisations of all sizes and sectors to become effective using data.

Jo is passionate about data literacy for all and has been developing training and learning materials to demystify data science and support the teaching of data science from school to executive level.

Jo has been actively involved with The Data Lab over a number of years most recently as a governance board member. As an ambassador she hopes to help widen the reach of The Data Lab even further.

Farouk Abdullah

Farouk is a digital and analytics business leader delivering organizational transformation in large companies in the UK, Europe and South East Asia. He is currently the pack leader of Natural Intelligence Solutions a data science consulting firm based in South East Asia.

Known as a radical thinker and a straight talker Farouk is obsessed with bringing real change to organizations that emphasizes on exponential growth. He has worked with organizations in multiple industries implementing enterprise wide digital transformation projects, advisory role to C-Suite and establishing effective data and analytics teams that deliver real change to the organization.

Farouk’s passion for digital, data and analytics has driven his belief that data and analytics must be used for the good of the society. He has spoken on numerous platforms globally to underline the importance of digital, data and analytics education for our next generation.

Chris Neumann

Chris Neumann is the Founder and CEO of Commonwealth Ventures, an organization devoted to narrowing the expertise gap between international startup ecosystems and the Silicon Valley.

As a serial entrepreneur and early startup employee, Chris helped raise more than USD $70M across 4 startups, which collectively have been sold for more than USD $300M. After his last startup, DataHero, was acquired in 2015, Chris joined 500 Startups as a Venture Partner, where he designed and launched an accelerator program focused on big data, machine learning and AI startups. Through that program, he led investments in startups in the US, Canada, the UK, Russia, Italy, Israel, Belarus and Nigeria. 

Chris is an active angel investor, board member, and advisor to startups in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK and an associate of the Creative Destruction Lab.

Jackie Doyle

Highly experienced senior manager / director with over 25 years’ experience in commercial and operational roles in the energy, technology, digital and telecommunications sectors. Areas of expertise include strategic planning, sales and marketing, project management and customer operations.

Jackie has been a founder, has worked in SMEs and in executive roles in corporate organisations. With experience across the public, private and third-sector, data and data driven innovation has underpinned many of the organisations he has worked in. Today Jackie is a Director with JLDMS providing consultancy services to companies and organisations in tech and energy sectors. 

Michael Young

As CEO of MBN Solutions, Michael leads the strategic direction of the unique recruitment and people solutions organisation he founded 12 years ago. A serial collaborator and community builder, Michael is the driving force behind events such as Scotchain, Scotland Data Science & Technology and Blockchain Scotland Meet-Up Group.

In addition to establishing MBN as one of the UK’s leading Data focussed Talent businesses, Michael has acted as advisor and confidante to a number of start-ups, charities and third-sector organisations and has provided support to many government agencies seeking to understand the increasingly complex landscape of Data Talent Acquisition. 

Laura Hepburn

I am a Data Analyst currently working at the Scottish Funding Council where I provide analytical insight and statistical evidence to feed into a number of further and higher education policy areas. Having undertaken a BSc in Biology at the University of Stirling, I then went on to study an MSc in Data Science for Business as part of the Datalab MSc programme. I was placed at SFC to complete my summer consultancy project and have been working in the analytical unit there since.

I’m particularly interested in data visualisation and telling stories with data… there’s nothing more satisfying than conveying analysis effectively to someone who claims to be “not a numbers person”! 

The data community in Scotland is powerful, collaborative and exciting. However, I haven’t come across that many other young women in the industry so I’m very keen to set an example for others to look at and think “I could do that too… and I’m going to” because they can, and the industry needs them.

Dr Eyad Elyan

Dr. Elyan obtained his PhD from the University of Bradford in 2008. He is currently a Reader (Associate Professor) in Machine Learning at the School of Computing Science and Digital Media at Robert Gordon University and he is leading the Machine Learning and Vision Applications research group. 

His research in the area of machine learning and machine vision is primarily focused on creating novel methods to represent and extract knowledge from unstructured and complex documents and images and structured data and applying it to solve industrial problems. He has attracted funds to support his research from different public funding bodies including Innovate UK, the Data Lab Innovation Centre, and Oil and Gas Innovation Centre (OGIC), Historic Environment Scotland and Others. Eyad is leading several projects with industrial partners across different domains including Oil and Gas, Construction, Sports Science, and Health.

Elyan is a Fellow member of the British Higher Education Academy. He served as a Program Committee member for several international conferences and as a reviewer for several international journals in the area of machine vision, machine learning and data analytics and he has published more than 50 articles in the area of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks, Generative Adversarial Neural Network and Ensemble Learning.

Prof Ruth Falconer

Professor Ruth Falconer is a leading academic in the field of applied computer game technologies. She leads the Games Technology and Mathematics subject areas at Abertay University. Research interests include Systems Modelling and Data Science. With substantial academic contributions across games tech and other sectors, Prof Falconer is also known for research into the development of intuitive models of complex systems. She has published more than 55 peer reviewed articles, is an expert reviewer for European Commission and RCUK proposals, and has secured income for her research topics in excess of £1.5m.

An ambassador for female participation in the games industry, Prof Falconer was recently appointed an executive board member for Women in Games and named one of the 100 most influential women in the industry, based on work to support diversity in the educational pipeline. She is an Nvidia Deep Learning Institute (DLI) Certified Instructor and NVIDIA DLI University Ambassador. 

Ian Watt

I am an Open Data advocate and occasional data scientist / data wrangler.

I have a background in Local Government where I put together digital and data teams, managed large digital projects, and led both the funding of, and the authority’s participation in EU-scale programmes. I was the project lead for open data for a programme involving all of Scotland’s seven cities. After leaving the public sector I completed an MSc in Data Science at RGU, sponsored by The Data Lab.

I currently lead for Civic Society on Commitment 3 (access to Info and Data) of for the Open Government Partnership plans for Scotland. I combine roles as charity trustee, having co-founded Code The City to tackle social issues using tech and data. I am also exec- and non-exec director to three companies / organisations. I created and co-hosted the first Scottish Open Data Unconference in Sept 2020, and have started to work with others to build the Open Data Scotland community.

In my spare time I am a trainer for Wiki Media UK and have a keen interest in the use of WikiData as a public repository for linked open data.