Music PhD Chris Rhodes awarded EPSRC Post-Doctoral prize to start in the department of Computer Science, UoM.

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Chris Rhodes has been awarded a very prestigious UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Doctoral Prize, for retaining top PhD level EPSRC funded students, at the University of Manchester. This prize was based on his PhD research at NOVARS Research Centre, (Music), which investigated the use of biometrics, machine learning and AI to compose a portfolio of music. 

He will investigate how AI technology can be used to play the guitar. The project starts in July 2022, within the School of Engineering, department of Computer Science, at the University of Manchester, sponsored by Prof. Caroline Jay.

Chris says:
“It was incredible to hear that I was awarded this prize after developing a proposal based on my PhD research within music composition, following the work done in this area with Prof. Ricardo Climent (NOVARS) and Dr. Richard Allmendinger (AMBS). It has been tremendously fun, educational, and rewarding to work with them as a team. It was also incredibly exciting to hear that Prof. Caroline Jay (School of Engineering, department of Computer Science) was joining this Doctoral Prize project as a sponsor at the University of Manchester, and it was vital to have her input and expertise when developing this project proposal.

Prof. Caroline Jay says:
“I am delighted Chris will be joining the department, and looking forward to doing some great research with him and the wider team”

De Richard Allmendinger says:
“It is superb news for Chris to be awarded this fellowship and continue this line of research now also with Computer Science”

Prof. Ricardo Climent says:
“This is the cherry on the cake to Chris’s PhD research; a prize very much deserved. His work at the intersections of Music, Machine Learning and Biometrics has been outstanding but his greatest contribution was his passion and unconditional dedication to our group.