Rate My Professor Michael Fisher

Professor Michael Fisher holds the position of Professor of Computer Science and the Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies (2019-2029) within the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester. He leads the Autonomy and Verification Network, a collaborative research group dedicated to the specification, modelling, and verification of autonomous systems. Fisher is a Fellow of both the British Computer Society (BCS) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). Currently on partial secondment to the UK's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, he advises on robotics and artificial intelligence policy. As academic lead for the CRADLE Prosperity Partnership between the Manchester Centre for Robotics and AI and Amentum, his work targets robotic autonomy in demanding and long-lasting environments. Fisher contributes significantly to standards development, serving on BSI and IEEE committees for fail-safe design of autonomous systems, having previously co-chaired the IEEE Technical Committee on Verification of Autonomous Systems. He also holds the role of Senior Associate Editor for the Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence journal. Previously, he served as Honorary Professor at the University of Liverpool from 2020 to 2023.

Fisher's research specializations include trustworthy AI, verification and validation of human-robot teams, certification of reliable autonomous systems, and verifiable ethical reasoning for robots. His influential publications encompass "Formal specification and verification of autonomous robotic systems: A survey" (Luckcuck, Farrell, Dennis, Dixon, Fisher, 2019); "Formal verification of ethical choices in autonomous systems" (Dennis, Fisher, Slavkovik, Webster, 2016); "Verifying multi-agent programs by model checking" (Bordini, Fisher, Visser, Wooldridge, 2006); "Trustworthy AI" (Chatila et al., 2021); and "Towards a framework for certification of reliable autonomous systems" (Fisher et al., 2021). He has received the Springer Best Paper Award in 2014 and a Best Paper Award in 2018. Fisher's projects, such as CRADLE, FAIR-SPACE, and S4, underscore his impact on the field, alongside policy contributions like "A Roadmap for Responsible Robotics" (2025). His work advances the safe and ethical deployment of autonomous technologies.