I was educated at Midleton College in Ireland and graduated in Engineering from the University of Dublin, Trinity College, in 1979. I began my professional career as a software engineer with Westinghouse Electric Inc. where I worked in the USA and Ireland until 1981. I left Westinghouse to do post-graduate research and I completed my Ph.D. in computer science at Trinity College in 1985.

In 1983, I was appointed a Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science in Trinity College and worked there until 1995. From 1991 to 1993, I took a leave of absence and was appointed a Scientific Officer in the European Commission in the areas of high performance computing and software engineering.

I was elected a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin in 1991.

Returning to Trinity, from 1994 to 1995 I coordinated a wide-ranging initiative on the development of a University-wide policy on information systems, working with over one hundred people in a project involving more than of 30,000 hours of effort.

I was appointed to the Chair of Computer Science at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland in 1995 as Professor and Head of Department. There, I was responsible for the development and launch of new B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in computer science and software engineering. I resigned the Chair in December 1999.

From 1998 to 2005 I worked at the Etisalat University College, UAE (later to become Khalifa University), as, variously, Professor of Computer Engineering, Head of Department, and Director of Postgraduate Studies (Acting).

In 2002, I joined Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) as a Senior Programme Officer where I worked on the development and administration of SFI’s innovative research funding programmes, with particular responsibility in the areas of computer science and software engineering.

From 2002 to 2005, I was the coordinator of ECVision – the European Research Network for Cognitive Computer Vision Systems (www.ecvision.org).

From 2006 to 2008, I was the coordinator of euCognition – the European Network for the Advancement of Artificial Cognitive Systems (www.eucognition.org).

From 2004 to 2010, I was a member of the team coordinating the EU-funded RobotCub Integrated Project, the goal of which is to develop an open-source cognitive humanoid robot: the iCub. I had specific responsibility for the cognitive architecture.

In late 2006, I returned to the UAE as Professor of Computer Engineering at Etisalat University College (now Kalifa University of Science, Technology, and Research) with the specific brief to help develop the post-graduate degree programmes. I was re-appointed Head of Department in 2009. I resigned my post in 2010 to seek new challenges

I now work independently on cognitive systems research and I am a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Cognitive Systems, Technische Universität München.

My recent research activities have been concerned mainly with cognitive systems and computer vision. I have authored three books, edited another three, and published over 100 papers, most of which have appeared in peer-reviewed international journals and conference proceedings.

I have been a reviewer for several journals including the International Journal of Robotics Research, Artificial Intelligence, IEEE Trans. on Evolutionary Computing, IEEE Trans. on Autonomous Mental Development, Optical Engineering, Journal of the Optical Society of America, and Image and Vision Computing. I've been and continue to be a member of several international conference programme committees such as ACM/IEEE HRI, ICCS, ICCV, ECCV, ICPR, ECAI, ICVS, ICDL, IMVIP, OESI, CSNLP, and IROS.

I was appointed to the Editorial Board of AI Magazine in 2007. I was a Guest Editor of a special issue of Image and Vision Computing journal on Cognitive Vision Systems in 2007 and I was appointed to the editorial boards of Image and Vision Computing and Cognitive Computation in 2008.

I was appointed a Series Editor of the Springer book series Cognitive Systems Monographs in 2008.

In June 2000, I organized the Sixth European Conference on Computer Vision – ECCV 2000 – in Trinity College and served as both General Chair and Programme Chair. I am now a member of the Board of ECCV.

I have served two terms as External Examiner at both Dublin City University and the University of Limerick and have been an external examiner for Ph.D. and M.Sc. theses at several universities, including Salford University, Dublin University, Dublin City University, University of Limerick, University of Ulster, Queen’s University Belfast, and Cork Institute of Technology.

I'm a Senior Member of the IEEE and a Chartered Engineer of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland.