He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science (Machine Learning) from Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. He spent his undergraduate years in Germany at the University of Konstanz and later completed a Diploma in Mathematics with Biology (~Masters by Research) at the University of Heidelberg. He is the leader of the Newcastle Robotics Laboratory and of the Interdisciplinary Machine Learning Research Group (IMLRG). His research interests include autonomous agents, computer vision, dimensionality reduction, human centered computing, machine learning, and neural information processing systems. He has published over 70 articles and received research grants with a total value of over a million dollars. He is a member of the ACM, the ACS and a senior member of the IEEE.