Dr Frank Glavin

BSc; MSc, PhD.

Contact Details

LECTURER BELOW THE BAR
College of Engineering
& Informatics
NUI Galway
T: Ext. 2032
E: frank.glavin@nuigalway.ie
 
researcher
 

Biography

I received an honours B.Sc. degree in Information Technology from NUI Galway in 2006. I received an M.Sc. degree in Applied Computing and Information Technology from NUI Galway in 2010 as part of a collaborative project between NUI Galway and UCD. This work involved developing a One-Sided Classification toolkit and carrying out experimentation on high dimensional spectroscopy data. This work resulted in a single publication which won a best paper award at a national AI conference. I received a  Ph.D. from NUI Galway in 2016. My Ph.D. research involved designing and implementing multiple reinforcement learning architectures in Java to automate the control and adaption of non-player characters in a commercial first-person shooter game. I helped to set up the ComputerDISC programming support service in NUI Galway in 2010 and I managed, as well as tutored, in the centre for five years under a HEA funded teaching scholarship. My Ph.D. work resulted in four peer-reviewed papers being published including an international student best paper award. Upon finishing my Ph.D., I began work as a software engineer for Analyze IQ™ Limited and this involved designing and developing software applications for performing data analytics and library search on spectral data. Specifically, my role involved collaborative work on a European project to develop a forensic toolbox. The GIFT project includes over 20 collaborate partners and is funded under the Seventh Framework Programme of the EC. I took up the post of Below the Bar Lecturer in the School of Computer Science in August 2016. In 2018, I took over the role as the academic coordinator of the Computer Drop-In Support Centre. In 2020, I began a part-time consultancy role as a Leaving Certificate Computer Science Associate with the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST).

Research Interests

I have carried out research into the classification of high dimensional spectroscopy data using both traditional machine learning algorithms as well as more recent advances in deep learning.

I have also carried out research into the development of adaptive non-player characters in computer games using reinforcement learning and developed some Dynamic Difficult Adjustment mechanisms to improve player enjoyment.

More recently, I have focused my research on Computer Science Education, in particular, the teaching of computer programming. I am working to develop an adaptive learning platform for teaching programming which reacts to individual user needs and builds up an implicit learning profile to help identify areas for improvement.

Other interests include: Use of virtual environments for object detection and drone surveying; serverless computing cloud platform analysis; emerging serverless threats such as Denial of Wallet; face detection and emotion recognition in cartoon characters and 3D animations; using reinforcement learning environments to simulate the control of epidemic spread.

Peer Reviewed Journals

  Year Publication
(2020) 'Robust Classification of High-Dimensional Spectroscopy Data Using Deep Learning and Data Synthesis'
James Houston, Frank G. Glavin, and Michael G. Madden (2020) 'Robust Classification of High-Dimensional Spectroscopy Data Using Deep Learning and Data Synthesis'. Journal Of Chemical Information And Modeling, [Details]
(2015) 'Adaptive Shooting for Bots in First Person Shooter Games using Reinforcement Learning'
Frank G. Glavin, Michael G. Madden (2015) 'Adaptive Shooting for Bots in First Person Shooter Games using Reinforcement Learning'. Ieee Transactions On Computational Intelligence And Ai In Games, 7 (2) [Details]

Books

  Year Publication
(2015) Towards Inherently Adaptive First Person Shooter Agents using Reinforcement Learning.
Frank Glavin (2015) Towards Inherently Adaptive First Person Shooter Agents using Reinforcement Learning. NUI Galway: PhD Thesis. [Details]
(2009) A One-Sided Classification Toolkit with Applications in the Analysis of Spectroscopy Data.
Frank Glavin (2009) A One-Sided Classification Toolkit with Applications in the Analysis of Spectroscopy Data. NUI Galway: Master's Thesis. [Details]

Conference Publications

  Year Publication
(2020) ITiCSE '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education
Michael Gavin, Frank G. Glavin (2020) CLuAI - Conversational Learning using Artificial Intelligence: An Interactive and Adaptive Chatbot Learning Framework for Teaching Programming ITiCSE '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education [Details]
(2019) Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science
Andrea Yanez, Conor Hayes, and Frank G. Glavin (2019) Towards the Control of Epidemic Spread: Designing Reinforcement Learning Environments Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science [Details]
(2018) IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games
Frank G. Glavin and Michael G. Madden (2018) Skilled Experience Catalogue: A Skill-Balancing Mechanism for Non-Player Characters using Reinforcement Learning IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games [Details]
(2018) IEEE Games, Entertainment, and Media (GEM)
David L. Smyth, Frank G. Glavin, Michael G. Madden (2018) Using a Game Engine to Simulate Critical Incidents and Data Collection by Autonomous Drones IEEE Games, Entertainment, and Media (GEM) [Details]
(2018) 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)
David L. Smyth, James Fennell, Sai Abinesh, Nazli B. Karimi, Frank G. Glavin, Ihsan Ullah, Brett Drury, Michael G. Madden (2018) A Virtual Environment with Multi-Robot Navigation, Analytics, and Decision Support for Critical Incident Investigation 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) [Details]
(2017) 25th Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science
Anthony M. Colwell and Frank G. Glavin (2017) Colwell's Castle Defence: A Custom Game Using Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment to Increase Player Enjoyment 25th Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science , pp.275-282 [Details]
(2009) Proceedings of 20th Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference, Lecture Notes in Computer Science
Frank G. Glavin and Michael G. Madden (2009) Analysis of the Effect of Unexpected Outliers in the Classification of Spectroscopy Data Proceedings of 20th Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Dublin, [Details]
(2015) IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games
Frank G. Glavin, Michael G. Madden (2015) Learning to Shoot in First Person Shooter Games by Stabilizing Actions and Clustering Rewards for Reinforcement Learning IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games Taiwan, , pp.344-351 [Details]
(2012) 17th International Conference on Computer Games (CGAMES)
Frank G. Glavin, Michael G. Madden (2012) DRE-Bot: A Hierarchical First Person Shooter Bot using Multiple SARSA (λ) Reinforcement Learners 17th International Conference on Computer Games (CGAMES) Kentucky, , pp.148-152 [Details]
(2011) GAMEON 2011, the 12th annual European Conference on Simulation and AI in Computer Games
Frank G. Glavin, Michael G. Madden (2011) Incorporating Reinforcement Learning into the Creation of Humanlike Autonomous Agents in First Person Shooter Games GAMEON 2011, the 12th annual European Conference on Simulation and AI in Computer Games , pp.16-21 [Details]
(2009) 20th Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science
Frank G. Glavin, Michael G. Madden (2009) Analysis of the Effects of Unexpected Outliers in the Classification of Spectroscopy Data 20th Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Dublin, , pp.124-133 [Details]

Honours and Awards

  Year Title Awarding Body
2012 Best Paper Award International Conference on Computer Games (CGames)
2009 Best Paper Award Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science (AICS)

Professional Associations

  Association Function From / To
ACM Special Interest Group For Computer Science Education Irish Chapter /

Education

  Year Institution Qualification Subject
2006 NUI Galway BACHELOR OF SCIENCE Information Technology
2020 National University of Ireland, Galway. Post Graduate Cert in Teaching and Learning Teaching and Learning, Course Design, Assessment & Evaluation, Reflective Practice & Professional Development
2016 NUI Galway PhD in Computer Science Artificial Intelligence
2010 NUI Galway MASTERS OF SCIENCE Applied Computing and Information Technology

Consultancy

  Client Description
Professional Development Service for Teachers
Part-time Leaving Certificate Computer Science Associate

Recent Postgraduate Students

  Graduation Name Degree Primary Supervisor
2017 James Fennell MASTERS OF SCIENCE Y
2017 Anthony Colwell MASTERS OF SCIENCE Y

Modules Taught

  Term/Year Module Title Module Code Subject / Desc
2017-2018 Computer Systems and Organisation CT213 Second Year CS and IT
2019-2020 Java Programming CT2106
2019-2020 Computing Systems CT101
2018-2019 OOP - Algorithms and Data Structures CT2109
2016-2017 Computer Systems and Organisation CT213 2nd Year CS&IT
2017-2018 Computer Systems CT1100 1st Year Arts and IT
2017-2018 Computing Systems CT101 First Year CS and IT
2019-2020 OOP - Algorithms and Data Structures CT2109
2017-2018 Machine Learning and Data Mining CT475 4th CS&IT, Masters, PhD
2018-2019 Computing Systems CT101
2018-2019 Computer Systems and Organisation CT213
2016-2017 Computer Systems CT1100 1st Year Arts and IT
2016-2017 Computing Systems CT101 1st Year CS&IT
2015-2016 Computer Systems CT1100 1st Year Arts and IT
2016-2017 Programming Paradigms CT331 3rd Year CS&IT