People

Dr Spyros Samothrakis

Chief Scientific Adviser and Senior Lecturer (R)
School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering (CSEE)
Dr Spyros Samothrakis

Profile

Qualifications

  • 2014, PhD Computer Science,University of Essex

  • 2007, MSc Intelligent Systems, University of Sussex

  • 2003, BSc Computer Science, University of Sheffield

Research and professional activities

Research interests

Reinforcement Learning

Open to supervise

Machine Learning

Open to supervise

Neural Networks

Open to supervise

Role Playing Games

Open to supervise

Teaching and supervision

Previous supervision

Damian Machlanski
Damian Machlanski
Thesis title: Understanding Hyperparameters in Machine Learning for Causal Estimation From Observational Data
Degree subject: Computer Science
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 1/10/2024
Mahrad Pisheh Var
Mahrad Pisheh Var
Thesis title: Minimalistic Adaptive Dynamic-Programming Agents for Memory-Driven Exploration
Degree subject: Computer Science
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 20/6/2024
Husam Malek Zaki Quteineh
Husam Malek Zaki Quteineh
Thesis title: Text Generation for Small Data Regimes
Degree subject: Computer Science
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 16/9/2022
Mohammed Ali A Alshahrani
Mohammed Ali A Alshahrani
Thesis title: Exploring Embedding Vectors for Emotion Detection
Degree subject: Computer Science
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 16/11/2020
Umar Isyaku Abdullahi
Umar Isyaku Abdullahi
Degree subject: Advanced Computer Science
Degree type: Master of Science
Awarded date: 5/10/2016

Publications

Publications (4)

Samothrakis, S., Soemers, DJNJ. and Machlanski, D., (2024). Games of Knightian Uncertainty as AGI testbeds

Machlanski, D., Samothrakis, S. and Clarke, P., (2023). Hyperparameter Tuning and Model Evaluation in Causal Effect Estimation

Machlanski, D., Samothrakis, S. and Clarke, P., (2023). Robustness of Algorithms for Causal Structure Learning to Hyperparameter Choice

Machlanski, D., Samothrakis, S. and Clarke, P., (2022). Undersmoothing Causal Estimators with Generative Trees

Journal articles (30)

Samothrakis, S., (2024). Artificial intelligence and modern planned economies: a discussion on methods and institutions. AI and Society. 39 (6), 2961-2972

Batsis, A. and Samothrakis, S., (2024). Contextual reinforcement learning for supply chain management. Expert Systems with Applications. 249, 123541-123541

Long, GEM., Perez-Liebana, D. and Samothrakis, S., (2024). STEP: A Framework for Automated Point Cost Estimation. IEEE Transactions on Games, 1-10

Machlanski, D., Samothrakis, S. and Clarke, P., (2024). Undersmoothing Causal Estimators With Generative Trees. IEEE Access. 12, 38562-38574

Fairbank, M., Prokhorov, D., Barragan-Alcantar, D., Samothrakis, S. and Li, S., (2024). Neurocontrol for Fixed-Length Trajectories in Environments with Soft Barriers. Neural Networks, 107034-107034

Soemers, DJNJ., Samothrakis, S., Piette, É. and Stephenson, M., (2023). Extracting tactics learned from self-play in general games. Information Sciences. 624, 277-298

Pisheh Var, M., Fairbank, M. and Samothrakis, S., (2023). A Minimal “Functionally Sentient” Organism Trained with Backpropagation Through Time. Adaptive Behavior. 31 (6), 531-544

Lotun, S., Lamarche, V., Samothrakis, S., Sandstrom, G. and Matran-Fernandez, A., (2022). Parasocial relationships on YouTube reduce prejudice towards mental health issues. Scientific Reports. 12 (1), 16565-

Hernandez, D., Denamganai, K., Devlin, S., Samothrakis, S. and Walker, JA., (2022). A Comparison of Self-Play Algorithms Under a Generalized Framework. IEEE Transactions on Games. 14 (2), 221-231

Fairbank, M., Samothrakis, S. and Citi, L., (2022). Deep Learning in Target Space. Journal of Machine Learning Research. 23, 1-46

Dwivedi, YK., Hughes, L., Ismagilova, E., Aarts, G., Coombs, C., Crick, T., Duan, Y., Dwivedi, R., Edwards, J., Eirug, A., Galanos, V., Ilavarasan, PV., Janssen, M., Jones, P., Kar, AK., Kizgin, H., Kronemann, B., Lal, B., Lucini, B., Medaglia, R., Le Meunier-FitzHugh, K., Le Meunier-FitzHugh, LC., Misra, S., Mogaji, E., Sharma, SK., Singh, JB., Raghavan, V., Raman, R., Rana, NP., Samothrakis, S., Spencer, J., Tamilmani, K., Tubadji, A., Walton, P. and Williams, MD., (2021). Artificial Intelligence (AI): Multidisciplinary perspectives on emerging challenges, opportunities, and agenda for research, practice and policy. International Journal of Information Management. 57, 101994-101994

Samothrakis, S., (2021). Artificial Intelligence inspired methods for the allocation of common goods and services.. PLoS One. 16 (9), e0257399-e0257399

Samothrakis, S., (2020). Open Loop In Natura Economic Planning. CoRR. abs/2005.01539

Salge, C., Short, E., Preuss, M., Samothrakis, S. and Spronck, P., (2020). Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Live Action Role-Playing Games (LARP). 2020 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG). 2020-August, 612-619

Hernández, D., Denamganaï, K., Devlin, S., Samothrakis, S. and Walker, JA., (2020). A Comparison of Self-Play Algorithms Under a Generalized Framework.. CoRR. abs/2006.04471

Samothrakis, S., (2018). Viewpoint: Artificial Intelligence and Labour. Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. 2018-July, 5652-5655

Samothrakis, S., (2018). Kathryn E. Merrick: Computational models of motivation for game-playing agents: Springer, 2016, 213 pp, ISBN: 978-3-319-33457-8. Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines. 19 (4), 567-568

Samothrakis, S., (2018). Kathryn E. Merrick: Computational models of motivation for game-playing agents - Springer, 2016, 213 pp, ISBN: 978-3-319-33457-8.. Genet. Program. Evolvable Mach.. 19, 567-568

Samothrakis, S., Fasli, M., Perez, D. and Lucas, S., (2017). Default policies for global optimisation of noisy functions with severe noise. Journal of Global Optimization. 67 (4), 893-907

Tom Vodopivec, Samothrakis, S. and Brank Ster, (2017). On monte carlo tree search and reinforcement learning. The Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research. 60, 881-936

Samothrakis, S., Perez, D., Lucas, SM. and Rohlfshagen, P., (2016). Predicting Dominance Rankings for Score-Based Games. IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games. 8 (1), 1-12

Perez-Liebana, D., Samothrakis, S., Togelius, J., Schaul, T., Lucas, SM., Couetoux, A., Lee, J., Lim, C-U. and Thompson, T., (2016). The 2014 General Video Game Playing Competition. IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games. 8 (3), 229-243

Perez, D., Mostaghim, S., Samothrakis, S. and Lucas, SM., (2015). Multiobjective Monte Carlo Tree Search for Real-Time Games. IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games. 7 (4), 347-360

Samothrakis, S. and Fasli, M., (2015). Emotional Sentence Annotation Helps Predict Fiction Genre. PLoS One. 10 (11), e0141922-e0141922

Perez, D., Powley, EJ., Whitehouse, D., Rohlfshagen, P., Samothrakis, S., Cowling, PI. and Lucas, SM., (2014). Solving the Physical Traveling Salesman Problem: Tree Search and Macro Actions. IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games. 6 (1), 31-45

Perez, D., Togelius, J., Samothrakis, S., Rohlfshagen, P. and Lucas, SM., (2014). Automated Map Generation for the Physical Traveling Salesman Problem. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation. 18 (5), 708-720

Samothrakis, S., Lucas, S., Runarsson, T. and Robles, D., (2013). Coevolving Game-Playing Agents: Measuring Performance and Intransitivities. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation. 17 (2), 213-226

Friston, K., Samothrakis, S. and Montague, R., (2012). Active inference and agency: optimal control without cost functions. Biological Cybernetics. 106 (8-9), 523-541

Browne, CB., Powley, E., Whitehouse, D., Lucas, SM., Cowling, PI., Rohlfshagen, P., Tavener, S., Perez, D., Samothrakis, S. and Colton, S., (2012). A Survey of Monte Carlo Tree Search Methods. IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games. 4 (1), 1-43

Samothrakis, S., Robles, D. and Lucas, S., (2011). Fast Approximate Max-n Monte Carlo Tree Search for Ms Pac-Man. IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games. 3 (2), 142-154

Book chapters (1)

Samothrakis, S., Perez, D. and Lucas, S., (2019). Training Gradient Boosting Machines Using Curve-Fitting and Information-Theoretic Features for Causal Direction Detection. In: The Springer Series on Challenges in Machine Learning. Editors: . Springer International Publishing. 331- 338. 9783030218096

Conferences (36)

Machlanski, D., Samothrakis, S. and Clarke, P., (2024). Robustness of Algorithms for Causal Structure Learning to Hyperparameter Choice

Samothrakis, S., Soemers, DJNJ. and Machlanski, D., (2024). Games of Knightian Uncertainty as AGI testbeds

Pisheh Var, M., Fairbank, M. and Samothrakis, S., (2023). Finding Eulerian tours in mazes using amemory-augmented fixed policy function

Long, GEM., Perez-Liebana, D. and Samothrakis, S., (2023). Balancing Wargames through Predicting Unit Point Costs

Quteineh, H., Samothrakis, S. and Sutcliffe, R., (2022). Enhancing Task-Specific Distillation in Small Data Regimes through Language Generation

Samothrakis, S., Matran-Fernandez, A., Abdullahi, U., Fairbank, M. and Fasli, M., (2022). Grokking-like effects in counterfactual inference

Raza, H., Chowdhury, A., Bhattacharyya, S. and Samothrakis, S., (2020). Single-Trial EEG Classification with EEGNet and Neural Structured Learning for Improving BCI Performance

Quteineh, H., Samothrakis, S. and Sutcliffe, R., (2020). Textual Data Augmentation for Efficient Active Learning on Tiny Datasets

Salge, C., Short, E., Preuss, M., Samothrakis, S. and Spronck, P., (2020). Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Live Action Role-Playing Games (LARP).

Abdullahi, UI., Samothrakis, S. and Fasli, M., (2020). Causal Inference with Correlation Alignment

Raza, H. and Samothrakis, S., (2019). Bagging Adversarial Neural Networks for Domain Adaptation in Non-Stationary EEG

Rajalingam, VR. and Samothrakis, S., (2019). Neuroevolution Strategies for Word Embedding Adaptation in Text Adventure Games

Hernandez, D., Denamganai, K., Gao, Y., York, P., Devlin, S., Samothrakis, S. and Walker, JA., (2019). A Generalized Framework for Self-Play Training

Sankarpandi, SK., Samothrakis, S., Citi, L. and Brady, P., (2019). Active learning without unlabeled samples: generating questions and labels using Monte Carlo Tree Search

Alshahrani, M., Samothrakis, S. and Fasli, M., (2019). Identifying idealised vectors for emotion detection using CMA-ES

Samothrakis, S., (2018). Viewpoint: Artificial Intelligence and Labour.

Samothrakis, S., Vodopivec, T., Fairbank, M. and Fasli, M., (2017). Convolutional-Match Networks for Question Answering

Alshahrani, M., Samothrakis, S. and Fasli, M., (2017). Word mover's distance for affect detection

Abdullahi, U., Samothrakis, S. and Fasli, M., (2017). Counterfactual domain adversarial training of neural networks

Abdullahi, UI., Samothrakis, S. and Fasli, M., (2017). Counterfactual Domain Adversarial Training of Neural Networks

Alshahrani, M., Samothrakis, S. and Fasli, M., (2017). Word Mover's Distance for Affect Detection

Perez-Liebana, D., Samothrakis, S., Togelius, J., Lucas, SM. and Schaul, T., (2016). General video game AI: Competition, challenges, and opportunities

Samothrakis, S., Vodopivec, T., Fasli, M. and Fairbank, M., (2016). Match memory recurrent networks

Perez-Liebana, D., Samothrakis, S., Togelius, J., Schaul, T. and Lucas, SM., (2016). Analyzing the robustness of general video game playing agents

Samothrakis, S., Perez-Liebana, D., Lucas, SM. and Fasli, M., (2015). Neuroevolution for General Video Game Playing

Lucas, SM., Samothrakis, S. and Pérez, D., (2014). Fast Evolutionary Adaptation for Monte Carlo Tree Search

Perez, D., Powley, E., Whitehouse, D., Samothrakis, S., Lucas, S. and Cowling, PI., (2014). The 2013 Multi-objective Physical Travelling Salesman Problem Competition

Perez, D., Samothrakis, S. and Lucas, S., (2014). Knowledge-based fast evolutionary MCTS for general video game playing

Samothrakis, S., Roberts, SA., Perez, D. and Lucas, SM., (2014). Rolling horizon methods for games with continuous states and actions

Perez, D., Samothrakis, S., Lucas, S. and Rohlfshagen, P., (2013). Rolling horizon evolution versus tree search for navigation in single-player real-time games

Perez, D., Samothrakis, S. and Lucas, S., (2013). Online and offline learning in multi-objective Monte Carlo Tree Search

Ashlock, D., Ashlock, W., Samothrakis, S., Lucas, S. and Lee, C., (2012). From competition to cooperation: Co-evolution in a rewards continuum

Samothrakis, S. and Lucas, S., (2011). Approximating n-player behavioural strategy nash equilibria using coevolution

Samothrakis, S., Rob, D. and Lucas, SM., (2010). A UCT agent for Tron: Initial investigations

Samothrakis, S. and Lucas, SM., (2010). Planning using online evolutionary overfitting

(1991). Proceedings of the 29th annual meeting on Association for Computational Linguistics -

Reports and Papers (1)

Fairbank, M., Samothrakis, S. and Citi, L., (2021). Deep Learning in Target Space

Grants and funding

2024

ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change

Economic and Social Research Council

2023

To design and deliver a database architecture for ingestion of a broad range of historical and future data, and to provide first-in-sector analysis on identification of relationships between key datapoints and datastreams to derive novel ecological conclusions for commercially advantageous purposes.

Innovate UK (formerly Technology Strategy Board)

2022

National Theatre Archive data analysis innovation voucher

The Royal National Theatre

2021

G's Growers KTP Application

Innovate UK (formerly Technology Strategy Board)

Cancer Pathways

Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust

2020

PREQIN KTP2 Application - March 2020 resubmission

Preqin KTP 2

PREQIN KTP2 Application - March 2020 resubmission

Preqin KTP 2

2019

The Research Centre on Micro-Social Change (MiSoC)

Economic and Social Research Council

The development of a new CPD tracker using AI and embedded machine learning to track and enhance performance of all staff.

Innovate UK (formerly Technology Strategy Board)

Orbital Media IV (EIRA)

Orbital Media & Advertising Ltd

The Research Centre on Micro-Social Change (MiSoC)

Economic and Social Research Council

The Research Centre on Micro-Social Change (MiSoC)

Economic and Social Research Council

2018

Discovering Individual and Social Preferences through Inverse Reinforcement Learning

Economic and Social Research Council

Develop AI methods to optimise interactions with customers.

Innovate UK (formerly Technology Strategy Board)

2017

The project investigates the use of algorithms (genetic + reinforcement) to provide accurate forecasts of asset prices.

Innovate UK (formerly Technology Strategy Board)

Embedding a Machine Learning capability into the Hood Group Ltd platform.

Innovate UK (formerly Technology Strategy Board)

IAA ECC Challenge Lab project - Community inclusion

Catalyst Project (HEFCE Funding)

Create new methods of capturing insight from current and future Preqin datasets by embedding AI and Machine Learning techniques across the unique Preqin investor platform.

Prequin

Create new methods of capturing insight from current and future Preqin datasets by embedding AI and Machine Learning techniques across the unique Preqin investor platform.

Prequin

The project investigates the use of algorithms (genetic + reinforcement) to provide accurate forecasts of asset prices.

Innovate UK (formerly Technology Strategy Board)

To embed a NLP capability in Objective IT

Innovate UK (formerly Technology Strategy Board)

To embed a NLP capability in Objective IT

Innovate UK (formerly Technology Strategy Board)

2016

67% Embedding an innovative application of advanced data mining, data analytics and data visualisation to exploit the growth potential of the UK's leading insight platform for professional services firms

Technology STrategy Board

33% Embedding an innovative application of advanced data mining, data analytics and data visualisation to exploit the growth potential of the UK's leading insight platform for professional services firms

Mondaq Ltd

67% - The design and development of a scalable, avatar based, digital healthcare platform, driven by AI and Machine Learning technology.

Technology STrategy Board

33% - The design and development of a scalable, avatar based, digital healthcare platform, driven by AI and Machine Learning technology.

Orbital Media & Advertising Ltd.

Scoping Exercise for new data product

Hood Group Ltd

2015

67% - To extend the business intelligence and digital marketing offer by developing and embedding a new data analytics capability

Technology STrategy Board

33% - To extend the business intelligence and digitial marketing offer by developing and embedding a new data analytics capability

Objective Computing Ltd

Contact

ssamot@essex.ac.uk

Location:

PARKSIDE BLOCK C2, Colchester Campus

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