Alasdair J. G. Gray

I am an Associate Professor in Computer Science at Heriot Watt University, based on the Edinburgh campus. I lead the Semantic Web Lab (SWeL) in conjunction with Fiona McNeill at the University of Edinburgh.

My research focuses on practical data management and its application in information systems – utilising and extending advances in knowledge management technologies to improve information systems. This approach has supported advances in science while deepening the understanding of knowledge based systems to support future applications. I have collaborated with a large range of scientists – from astronomers through the life sciences to environmental scientists – working with both academic research labs and industrial partners. The success of these projects stems from my ability to work with the domain experts, to understand the issues with their data and to a limited extent their domain, and develop working data management solutions, i.e. practical solutions.

Principally I work on the challenges of integrating data from heterogeneous sources; where the heterogeneity can be from the way the data is modelled, represented, or rate of change. The result is a coherent representation of the data to enable analytical or other processing of the data.
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