Neil D. Lawrence
Also known as Neil Lawrence, Neil David Lawrence
Neil Lawrence is a machine learning professor at Cambridge whose work includes the Gaussian process latent variable model, a probabilistic method for non-linear data analysis. He works as a field engineer on North Sea oil rigs before completing a Cambridge PhD in 2000. In 2005 he is appointed Senior Lecturer at Sheffield, and in 2010 he returns there as a collaborative chair. From 2016 to 2019 he directs machine learning at Amazon, and in 2019 Cambridge appoints him as the inaugural DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning. As of October 2026, he also sits on the ELLIS board and is cofounder and Chief Scientist at Trent.AI.
- Now at
- University of Cambridge, European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems and Trent.AI
- Works
- 340
- Citations
- 16,415
- h-index
- 63
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
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2000
Oil rigs before a Cambridge PhD
He works as a field engineer on North Sea oil rigs before returning to academia. He completes his PhD at Cambridge's Computer Lab in 2000.
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2005
Senior lecturer and the GP-LVM
He is appointed Senior Lecturer at Sheffield in 2005. He also publishes a JMLR paper on probabilistic non-linear principal component analysis with Gaussian process latent variable models.
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August 2010
A collaborative chair in Sheffield
He returns to Sheffield in August 2010 as a collaborative chair in neuroscience and computer science.
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2014–2015
Chairing the NIPS conference
He serves as programme chair of the NIPS conference in 2014 and as general chair in 2015.
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2016–2019
Director of machine learning at Amazon
From 2016 to 2019 he is Director of Machine Learning at Amazon, where he works on deploying machine learning for Prime Air, Alexa and the Amazon supply chain.
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2019
Inaugural DeepMind Professor
Cambridge appoints him in 2019 as the inaugural DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning, a chair supported by a benefaction from DeepMind.
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June 2024
Writing The Atomic Human
He publishes The Atomic Human in June 2024, with the UK edition from Penguin's Allen Lane.
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As of October 2026
DeepMind chair and Trent.AI
He is the inaugural DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at Cambridge and sits on the ELLIS board. He is also cofounder and Chief Scientist at Trent.AI.
Sources and credits
Photo: inverseprobability.com; Biography | inverseprobability.com: Neil Lawrence’s Homepage; creator not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: inverseprobability.com. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.
- Biography | inverseprobability.com: Neil Lawrence’s Homepage
- Probabilistic Non-linear Principal Component Analysis with Gaussian Process Latent Variable Models
- Cambridge appoints first DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning | Department of Computer Science and Technology
- The Atomic Human | inverseprobability.com: Neil Lawrence’s Homepage
- Meet the Board: Neil Lawrence | European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems