John Robinson

Biography

John Robinson is a professor of Electronic Engineering. His research and design contributions are in image and video processing and statistical pattern recognition. Recently he has worked on the application of deep learning to signal analysis, including the development of masked conditional neural networks. From 2012 to 2020 he was Pro-Vice Chancellor for Teaching, Learning and Students at the University, serving on the Executive Board. This followed four years as Head of Electronics at the School of Physics, Engineering and Technology at York, which he joined in 2000. Before that he held an Industrial Research Chair at Memorial University of Newfoundland, founding a spinout company, and previously worked for the University of Waterloo and Bell-Northern Research. He has a BSc in Maths from Durham, MSc and PhD in Engineering from Essex, and an MPhil in the Humanities from Memorial.  John is a Principal Fellow of the HEA.

Publications

Publications information is available via the York Research Database

Teaching

John has taught modules in communications, digital design, software design, numerical methods and media engineering. Currently he teaches mathematics in Foundation Year.

Research

John’s current major research directions are in human face analysis, projector-camera systems and picture coding. For more on these see the Visual Systems Lab webpages.

A current focus is Face Description. We use a demographic/expression/landmark analysis method to describe pictures of people.

The method is based on conditional density estimation from mixture models.

We are working with industrial partners on several applications of the technology.

External

John currently sits on the executive committee of Professors and Heads of Department in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (PHEE). He is also involved in various external bodies in conjunction with his former role as PVC Learning, Teaching and Students.