Kevin Warwick is Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, England, where he carries out research in artificial intelligence, control, robotics and biomedical engineering. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng.) and is a Fellow of The Institution of Engineering & Technology (FIET). He is the youngest person ever to become a Fellow of the City & Guilds of London Institute (FCGI).

Kevin was born in Coventry, UK and left school to join British Telecom, at the age of 16. At 22 he took his first degree at Aston University, followed by a PhD and a research post at Imperial College, London. He subsequently held positions at Oxford, Newcastle and Warwick universities before being offered the Chair at Reading, at the age of 33.

He has been awarded higher doctorates (DScs) both by Imperial College and the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. He was presented with The Future of Health technology Award from MIT (USA), was made an Honorary Member of the Academy of Sciences, St.Petersburg and received The Mountbatten Medal in 2008. In 2000 Kevin presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, entitled “The Rise of The Robots”.

Kevin carried out a series of pioneering experiments involving the neuro-surgical implantation of a device into the median nerves of his left arm in order to link his nervous system directly to a computer in order to assess the latest technology for use with the disabled. He was successful with the first extra-sensory (ultrasonic) input for a human and with the first purely electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans. His research has been discussed by the US White House Presidential Council on BioEthics, The European Commission FTP and led to him being widely referenced and featured in academic circles as well as appearing as cover stories in several magazines – e.g. Wired (USA), The Week (India). The Institute of Physics cites Kevin as one of only 7 scientists in the world due to the ethical impact of his work, the others being Galileo, Einstein, Curie, Nobel, Oppenheimer and Rotblat.

His work is used as material in several advanced Level Physics courses in the UK and in many University courses including Harvard, Stanford, MIT & Tokyo. His implants are on display in the Science Museums in London and Naples. As a result, Kevin regularly gives invited Keynote presentations.

Kevin’s research involves robotics and he was responsible (with Jim Wyatt) for Cybot, a robot exported around the world as part of a magazine “Real Robots” – this resulted in royalties totalling over £1M for Reading University. Robots designed and constructed by Kevin’s group (Ian Kelly, Ben Hutt) have been on permanent interactive display in the Science Museums in London, Birmingham and Linz.

Kevin’s recent research involves a collaborative project with the Oxford neurosurgeon, Tipu Aziz, using intelligent computer methods to predict the onset of Parkinsonian tremors such that they can be stopped by means of a deep brain implant. In 2007 this work was hailed in the Mail on Sunday as “the most significant recent advance in biomedical engineering”.

He presently leads an ongoing EPSRC sponsored project in which a cultured neural network (using biological neurons) is trained to control a mobile robot platform. This work, which was reported on in a New Scientist feature article, is being used as an exercise for high school science studies in the UK. A Youtube video of this research has now been downloaded/viewed around 1 million times.

His presentations include The 1998 Robert Boyle Memorial Lecture at Oxford University, The 2000 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, The 2001 Higginson Lecture at Durham University, The 2003 Royal Academy of Engineering/Royal Society of Edinburgh Joint lecture in Edinburgh, The 2003 IEEE (UK) Annual Lecture in London, The 2004 Woolmer Lecture at York University, the Robert Hooke Lecture (Westminster) in 2005, the 2005 Einstein Lecture in Potsdam, Germany and the 2006 IMechE Mechatronics Prestige Lecture in London. The 2007 Techfest plenary lecture in Mumbai; Kshitij keynote in Kharagpur (India); Engineer Techfest keynote in NITK Surathkal (India). The Annual Science Faculty lecture at University of Leicester in 2007 and the Graduate School in Physical Sciences and Engineering Annual Lecture, Cardiff University. In 2008, Leslie Oliver Oration at Queen's Hospital; Techkriti keynote in Kanpur. Also 2008, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, guest lecture "Four weddings and a Funeral" for the Microsoft Research Chair. In 2009, Cardiff University, 125th Anniversary Lecture and Orwell Society Lecture, Eton College.

Kevin was a member of the 2001 HEFCE (unit 29) panel on Electrical & Electronic Engineering, was Deputy Chairman for the same panel in the 2007/8 exercise and is a member of the EPSRC Peer College. He has produced over 500 publications on his research including more than 110 refereed journal articles and 25 books. Kevin received the EPSRC Millenium Award (2000) for his schools robot league project and is the youngest ever Fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute. Kevin’s research has featured in many TV and film documentaries, e.g. Inventions that changed the world (BBC2), Late Night with Conan O'Brien (NBC), Future Scope (RAI 1) and The Making of I Robot (Twentieth Century Fox/Channel 5). He has appeared 3 times on Tomorrow’s World, 5 times in Time magazine, thrice in Newsweek and was selected by Channel 4 as one of the Top 6 UK Scientists for their 2001 series “Living Science”. In 2002 he was chosen by the IEE as one of the top 10 UK Electrical Engineers. Kevin also appeared as one of 30 “great minds on the future” in the THES/Oxford University book – Predictions – with J.K.Galbraith, Umberto Eco and James Watson.

Kevin’s research is frequently referred to by other authors – recent examples being in books by Robert Winston, Peter Cochrane, Jeremy Clarkson and Susan Greenfield. Kevin’s research was selected by National Geographic International for a 1 hour documentary, entitled “I,Human” screened in 2006/7 – this was broadcast in 143 countries and translated into 23 different languages. Some of his TV appearances are logged on the imdb website.