Rate My Professor Dhaval Thakker

Professor Dhavalkumar (Dhaval) Thakker is a British Indian Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things in the School of Computer Science at the University of Hull, United Kingdom. He serves as research lead for Computer Science, Head of the interdisciplinary Centre for Responsible Artificial Intelligence, Turing Academic Lead for the University, and Engagement Director (North & Midlands) for the EPSRC National Edge AI Hub. With nearly twenty years of experience in research and innovation, he has established leading research groups such as RAI-Hull and IoT-Hull, mentored early-career academics and postgraduate researchers, secured substantial grant funding, and fostered extensive collaborations for impactful outcomes in AI and IoT.

Thakker earned his BEng in Information Technology in India, MSc in Data Communications from Brunel University London, and PhD in Artificial Intelligence from Nottingham Trent University in 2008 for "An intelligent framework for dynamic web services composition in the semantic web." His career includes Associate Professor in IoT and Explainable AI at the University of Bradford, where he founded the IoT and Smart Cities Innovation Lab, launched the North of England's first MSc in Internet of Things, and directed Postgraduate Research for the Faculty of Engineering and Informatics. He previously worked three and a half years in industry at the Press Association developing an AI-driven semantic search engine for millions of archived images, and held several postdoctoral positions in Professor Tony Cohn's Artificial Intelligence Group at the University of Leeds on EU-funded projects like ImREAL, DICODE, and NeTTUN. Thakker's research specializes in Responsible AI—encompassing safety, explainability, fairness, and ethics—integrated with Edge Intelligence, IoT, complex event processing, and human-centred systems for domains including healthcare, social care, circular economy, smart cities, manufacturing, law, and critical infrastructure. He has secured over £2 million as principal investigator and contributed to collaborative programmes exceeding £15 million from funders such as EPSRC, Innovate UK, EU, OfS, and BMA, including the National Edge AI Hub (£10M), IRIS for domiciliary care, digital twins for Industry 4.0 training, and Interreg SCORE for smart cities. He has supervised over 15 doctoral researchers, externally examined more than 40 PhDs internationally, and managed postdoctoral staff. Thakker has received multiple Best Paper Awards, including at the 10th IEEE Conference on IoT, Big Data and AI for a Smart and Safe Future (2019) and the 12th European Semantic Web Conference (2015). He is Associate Editor for the Journal of Big Data and Frontiers in IoT, Editorial Board member for Springer's Discover IoT Journal, Guest Editor for IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics and the Neurosymbolic AI Journal, and a regular reviewer for UKRI (EPSRC, NERC, NIHR) and major international AI conferences.