Prof Michael Milford

  • Prof Michael Milford

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Director (acting), Program Lead (Perception & Localisation), Professor

PhD (University of Queensland)

Professor Milford conducts interdisciplinary research at the boundary between robotics, neuroscience and computer vision and is a multi-award winning educational entrepreneur. His research models the neural mechanisms in the brain underlying tasks like navigation and perception to develop new technologies in challenging application domains such as all-weather, anytime positioning for autonomous vehicles. He is also one of Australia’s most in demand experts in technologies including self-driving cars, robotics and artificial intelligence, and is a passionate science communicator. He currently holds the position of Professor at the Queensland University of Technology, as well as Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow and Chief Investigator at the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision.

His research has helped attract more than 45 million dollars in research and industry funding for fellowships and team grants from organizations including the Australian Research Council, Microsoft and US Air Force. Michael’s papers have won (6) or been finalists (9) for 15 best paper awards including the 2012 ICRA Best Vision paper. His citation h-index is 33, with 5884 citations as of March 2020. Michael has dual Australian-US citizenship and has lived and worked in locations including Boston, Edinburgh and London. He has collaborated with organizations including Harvard University, Boston University, Oxford University, MIT, Edinburgh University, Imperial College London, Google Deepmind, Caterpillar, the US Air Force and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Michael has given more than 200 keynotes, plenaries and invited presentations at major industrial corporations (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Toyota, OpenAI, Uber), top universities (including Harvard University, MIT, Oxford University, CMU, Imperial College London, Cambridge and Boston University), international conferences, workshops and scientific meetings across thirteen countries (USA, Canada, UK, Japan, China, Portugal, Norway, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Austria, France and Australia) to audiences of up to 2000 people. His work has been recognized by many international and national awards including the 2019 Batterham Medal for Engineering Excellence, the 2015 Queensland Young Tall Poppy Scientist of the Year award and a Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship.

As a lifelong educational entrepreneur, Michael has written innovative textbooks, novels and storybooks (20 titles to date) for early childhood, primary and high school audiences, and collaborates with the major movie studio representatives to write a regular “science in the movies” review series. He recently launched the company Math Thrills which combines mass market entertainment and STEM education. Math Thrills has received funding from Kickstarter, QUTBluebox and the AMP Foundation and honours including the Queensland Young Tall Poppy of the Year Award, being a Reimagine Education Awards finalist, a TedXQUT talk and World Science Festival event. His company has sold in 35 countries to date with recent titles including the STEM Storybook, The Complete Guide to Artificial Intelligence for Kids, Robot Revolution and Rachel Rocketeer.

Projects

Additional information

Experience

Professor Milford conducts interdisciplinary research at the boundary between robotics, neuroscience and computer vision and is a multi-award winning educational entrepreneur. His research models the neural mechanisms in the brain underlying tasks like navigation and perception to develop new technologies in challenging application domains such as all-weather, anytime positioning for autonomous vehicles. He is also one of Australia’s most in demand experts in technologies including self-driving cars, robotics and artificial intelligence, and is a passionate science communicator. He currently holds the position of Professor at the Queensland University of Technology, as well as Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow and Chief Investigator at the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision.

His research has helped attract more than 45 million dollars in research and industry funding for fellowships and team grants from organizations including the Australian Research Council, Microsoft and US Air Force. Michael’s papers have won (6) or been finalists (9) for 15 best paper awards including the 2012 ICRA Best Vision paper. His citation h-index is 33, with 5884 citations as of March 2020. Michael has dual Australian-US citizenship and has lived and worked in locations including Boston, Edinburgh and London. He has collaborated with organizations including Harvard University, Boston University, Oxford University, MIT, Edinburgh University, Imperial College London, Google Deepmind, Caterpillar, the US Air Force and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Michael has given more than 200 keynotes, plenaries and invited presentations at major industrial corporations (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Toyota, OpenAI, Uber), top universities (including Harvard University, MIT, Oxford University, CMU, Imperial College London, Cambridge and Boston University), international conferences, workshops and scientific meetings across thirteen countries (USA, Canada, UK, Japan, China, Portugal, Norway, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Austria, France and Australia) to audiences of up to 2000 people. His work has been recognized by many international and national awards including the 2019 Batterham Medal for Engineering Excellence, the 2015 Queensland Young Tall Poppy Scientist of the Year award and a Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship.

As a lifelong educational entrepreneur, Michael has written innovative textbooks, novels and storybooks (20 titles to date) for early childhood, primary and high school audiences, and collaborates with the major movie studio representatives to write a regular “science in the movies” review series. He recently launched the company Math Thrills which combines mass market entertainment and STEM education. Math Thrills has received funding from Kickstarter, QUTBluebox and the AMP Foundation and honours including the Queensland Young Tall Poppy of the Year Award, being a Reimagine Education Awards finalist, a TedXQUT talk and World Science Festival event. His company has sold in 35 countries to date with recent titles including the STEM Storybook, The Complete Guide to Artificial Intelligence for Kids, Robot Revolution and Rachel Rocketeer.

Awards

Type
Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
Reference year
2019
Details
2019 Batterham Medal for Engineering Excellence awarded by the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering
Type
Fellowships
Reference year
2013
Details
Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship, $110,000
Type
Membership of Review Panels on Prestigious Grant Applications
Reference year
2016
Details
Australian Research Council for Discovery Projects and Discovery Early Career Outstanding Researcher Fellowships
Type
Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
Reference year
2013
Details
Best Paper Finalist "Towards Condition-Invariant, Top-Down Visual Place Recognition," Michael Milford, Walter Scheirer, Eleonora Vig and David Cox
Type
Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
Reference year
2013
Details
Ray Jarvis Best Paper Award "Towards Bio-inspired Place Recognition over Multiple Spatial Scales," Zetao Chen, Adam Jacobson, Ugur Murat Erdem, Michael Hasselmo and Michael Milford
Type
Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
Reference year
2016
Details
Best Paper Finalist Robotics Science and Systems Conference: Milford, M., "Visual Route Recognition with a Handful of Bits", Sydney, Australia, 2012.
Type
Membership of Review Panels on Prestigious Grant Applications
Reference year
2013
Details
Israeli Ministry of Science & Technology reviewer for Brain Research Infrastructure program grant reviewer
Type
Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
Reference year
2012
Details
Best Robot Vision Paper Award at the 2012 International Conference on Robotics and Automation
Type
Membership of Review Panels on Prestigious Grant Applications
Reference year
2012
Details
Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Reviewer for Discovery Grants
Type
Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
Reference year
2006
Details
Queensland Young Achiever of the Year (Science and Technology) The aims are objectives of the program are to: Acknowledge & highlight the achievements of young Australians. Educate the general public with examples of youth achievement. Encourage & motivate young Australians at all levels in their chosen field of endeavour. Develop a sense of pride in being an Australian. Build self-confidence through rewards for excellence. Provide role models & mentors for our youth by highlighting their achievements and the pursuit of excellence. Develop and encourage leadership and life skills in young Australians.

Publications

Research Projects

Title
ARC Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision (ACRV)
Primary fund type
CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID
CE140100016
Start year
2014
Keywords
Robotic Vision; Robotics; Computer Vision
Title
Superhuman Place Recognition with a Unified Model of Human Visual Processing and Rodent Spatial Memory
Primary fund type
CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID
FT140101229
Start year
2015
Keywords
Place Recognition; Spatial Memory; Bio-Inspired Robot Navigation
Title
Visual Navigation for Sunny Summer Days and Stormy Winter Nights
Primary fund type
CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID
DE120100995
Start year
2012
Keywords
Vision-Based Navigation; Robot Navigation; Change-Invariant
Title
ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Joint Biomechanics
Primary fund type
CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID
IC190100020
Start year
2020
Keywords

Current Supervisions

Completed Supervisions (Doctorate)