PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Emma Hart

Emma Hart is a computational-intelligence researcher whose AI work uses biological evolution and immune-system ideas to develop optimization, learning and robotics methods. She earned first-class honours in chemistry at Oxford and an MSc in artificial intelligence at Edinburgh before completing a PhD on immune-inspired computation in 2002. She joined Edinburgh Napier as a lecturer in 2000 and became a Chair in 2008; from 2017 to 2023, she was editor-in-chief of Evolutionary Computation. Her Autonomous Robot Evolution work combined simulated and physical robots from 2018 to 2022, and she later received the RSE Fellowship in 2022 and the ACM SIGEVO Outstanding Contribution Award in 2023. In 2025 she chaired the UK Workshop on Computational Intelligence; as of October 2026 she is Professor at Edinburgh Napier and chairs its Nature-Inspired Intelligent Systems Group.

Born
1967
Links
Google Scholar

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. 1990–2002

    Chemistry, AI and a PhD

    She graduates with first-class honours in chemistry at Oxford in 1990 and an MSc in artificial intelligence at Edinburgh in 1994. Her 2002 PhD thesis, Immunology as a metaphor for computational information processing: fact or fiction?, explores immune-system ideas for computation.

  2. 2000–2008

    Lecturer to Chair at Napier

    She joins Edinburgh Napier as a lecturer in 2000 and is promoted to a Chair in 2008, leading the Nature-Inspired Intelligent Systems group. The group develops evolution-inspired optimization and learning algorithms for work ranging from combinatorial optimization to robotics.

  3. 2017–2023

    Editor of Evolutionary Computation

    She becomes editor-in-chief of Evolutionary Computation in 2017 and serves until 2023.

  4. 2018–2022

    Autonomous Robot Evolution

    She works on the four-year Autonomous Robot Evolution project with the University of York, Edinburgh Napier and partner teams from 2018 to 2022. Its hybrid hardware-software design combines simulated and physical robots with 3D manufacturing and a training facility where robots learn and evolve.

  5. 2022

    A Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellowship

    The Royal Society of Edinburgh elects her as a Fellow in 2022.

  6. 2023

    ACM SIGEVO Outstanding Contribution Award

    She receives the ACM SIGEVO Outstanding Contribution Award in 2023 for work in evolutionary computation. The award recognizes sustained contributions across technical innovation, publications, leadership, teaching, mentoring and service.

  7. 2025

    Chairing UKCI 2025

    She chairs the 24th UK Workshop on Computational Intelligence, hosted by Edinburgh Napier in 2025.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor and group chair

    She is a Professor at Edinburgh Napier University and chairs its Nature-Inspired Intelligent Systems Group.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 53% of people in our data with a known employment countryOur estimates of where AI careers are concentrated now and how countries’ shares of dated positions changed over time.
  3. 46% of living people in our data with known birth and employment countries work outside their birth countryOur estimate of cross-border careers in AI, from country of birth and the country of each current organization.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionOur estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Emma Hart yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Emma Hart (computer scientist) en.wikipedia.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. Immunology as a metaphor for computational information processing : fact or fiction? era.ed.ac.uk. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. GECCO 2024 | Organizers gecco-2024.sigevo.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. Evolutionary Computation (journal) en.wikipedia.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. Autonomous Robot Evolution: Cradle to Grave york.ac.uk. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. Jon Timmis - School of Physics, Engineering and Technology, University of York york.ac.uk. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. Academic and artistic minds honoured as RSE Fellows in 2022 rse.org.uk. Checked 19 October 2026.
  8. Volume 16, Issue 4 – SIGEVOlution evolution.sigevo.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  9. UK Workshop on Computational Intelligence (UKCI) 2025 innovationhub.napier.ac.uk. Checked 19 October 2026.
  10. Robotics + Autonomous Systems — SRPe srpe.ac.uk. Checked 19 October 2026.