My main research interests are in natural language processing, information retrieval and the implementation of such techniques in real applications. The intelligent directory enquiry assistant (YPA) project is a very early example where the extraction of information from partially structured data together with engineering issues played major roles in making the YPA a usable online system.
Dialogue Systems, Gamification, privacy and ethical issues in IR are further research topics I investigate.
I have furthermore been involved in successful joint university/industry projects that turned NLP and IR research into practical commercial applications, for example as PI on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project with Signal Media. The collaboration won the Best Knowledge Transfer Partnership Project of the Year Award at InnovateUK's 'Best of the Best 2015' event, and another KTP project with Signal Media has just started. I have a keen interest in bringing industry and academia closer together and have (co-)organised a variety of events such as Industry Days at top IR conferences, e.g. the ECIR 2019 Industry Day, and I am part of the organising team of the Search Solutions event held annually at the British Computer Society's London HQ.