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Dr Karl Mason

B.Sc., M.Sc., PhD

 
researcher
 

Biography

Dr. Karl Mason is a Lecturer Above the Bar (Assistant Professor) in the School of Computer Science at University of Galway. He is an SFI funded Principal Investigator. To date, he has secured over 1.6 million Euro in research funding from sources including: Science Foundation Ireland, Irish Research Council, Enterprise Ireland, and the Royal Irish Academy. He leads a team of 11 funded researchers within his research group at University of Galway.

Previously, he has held appointments as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the CIREGS lab at Cardiff University, UK. This work was funded by the EPSRC. He was also a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA within the ACES Research Group, in collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories. Here, his work was funded by Sandia National Laboratories and the National Science Foundation. He completed his PhD research at University of Galway. His PhD dissertation was nominated for the European AI PhD Dissertation award.

His research interests include: neural networks, evolutionary computing, reinforcement learning, multi-agent systems and swarm intelligence. His research also includes applications of machine learning methods to problems including: renewable energy, smart homes, infrastructure planning, smart grid, robotics and cloud computing. He regularly reviews papers for top journals and serves on the program committee and senior program committee for multiple leading AI conferences, including: AAAI, AAMAS, ECAI and IJCAI. He was a guest editor in the 2023 special issue on Evolutionary Machine Learning for The Knowledge Engineering Review journal, published by Cambridge University Press. He has also organized multiple workshops at high profile AI conferences, e.g. ECAI and ECML.






Research Interests

Dr. Mason's research interests include:
Neural networks
Evolutionary computing
Reinforcement learning
Multi-agent systems  

His research also includes applications of machine learning methods to problems including:
Renewable energy
Smart homes
Infrastructure planning
Smart grid
Robotics
Cloud computing




Research Projects

  Project Start Date End Date
Artificial intelligence-powered 3D printing (aiPRINT). 01-JAN-23 31-DEC-24
Tunable Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Peer-to-Peer Residential Energy Trading 01-OCT-22 30-SEP-25
Effective Integration of Renewable Energy within the Agriculture Sector in Ireland using Artificial Intelligence (EIRE AIAI) 01-JUL-22 30-JUN-27
Evolving Multi-Objective Robot Swarms (EvoMORS) 01-JAN-22 31-DEC-24
Artificial Intelligence Methods for Electric Vehicles Integration - ERC Support 01-JAN-21 31-OCT-24

Contract Researchers

  Researcher Name Project Role Funding Body
Dr. Abdul Wahid EIRE AIAI Postdoctoral Researcher Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)
Dr. Vasileios Sergis aiPRINT Postdoctoral researcher Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)
Dr. Daniel Kelly aiPRINT Postdoctoral Researcher Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)

Peer Reviewed Journals

  Year Publication
(2024) 'Multi-Agent Systems in Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading: A Comprehensive Survey'
Shah, MIA., Wahid, A., Barrett, E. and Mason, K. (2024) 'Multi-Agent Systems in Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading: A Comprehensive Survey'. Engineering Applications Of Artificial Intelligence, [Details]
(2022) 'A multi-objective multi-agent deep reinforcement learning approach to residential appliance scheduling'
Lu, J., Mannion, P. and Mason, K. (2022) 'A multi-objective multi-agent deep reinforcement learning approach to residential appliance scheduling'. Iet Smart Grid, [Details]
(2021) 'Investing in generation and storage capacity in a liberalised electricity market: An agent based approach'
Mason, K., Qadrdan, M. and Jenkins (2021) 'Investing in generation and storage capacity in a liberalised electricity market: An agent based approach'. Applied Energy, [Details]
(2020) 'A Deep Neural Network Approach for Behind-the-Meter Residential PV Size, Tilt and Azimuth Estimation'
Mason, Karl and Reno, Matthew and Blakely, Logan and Vejdan, Sadegh and Grijalva, Santiago (2020) 'A Deep Neural Network Approach for Behind-the-Meter Residential PV Size, Tilt and Azimuth Estimation'. Solar Energy, 196 :260-269 [Details]
(2019) 'A review of reinforcement learning for autonomous building energy management'
Mason, Karl and Grijalva, Santiago (2019) 'A review of reinforcement learning for autonomous building energy management'. Computers & Electrical Engineering, 78 :300-312 [Details]
(2018) 'A meta optimisation analysis of particle swarm optimisation velocity update equations for watershed management learning'
Mason, Karl and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2018) 'A meta optimisation analysis of particle swarm optimisation velocity update equations for watershed management learning'. Applied Soft Computing, 62 :148-161 [Details]
(2018) 'Predicting host CPU utilization in the cloud using evolutionary neural networks'
Mason, Karl and Duggan, Martin and Barrett, Enda and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2018) 'Predicting host CPU utilization in the cloud using evolutionary neural networks'. Future Generation Computer Systems, 86 :162-173 [Details]
(2018) 'Forecasting energy demand, wind generation and carbon dioxide emissions in Ireland using evolutionary neural networks'
Mason, Karl and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2018) 'Forecasting energy demand, wind generation and carbon dioxide emissions in Ireland using evolutionary neural networks'. Energy, 155 :705-720 [Details]
(2018) 'A multi-objective neural network trained with differential evolution for dynamic economic emission dispatch'
Mason, Karl and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2018) 'A multi-objective neural network trained with differential evolution for dynamic economic emission dispatch'. International Journal Of Electrical Power & Energy Systems, 100 :201-221 [Details]
(2018) 'Watershed Management using Neuroevolution'
Mason, Karl and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2018) 'Watershed Management using Neuroevolution'. Modeling Earth Systems and Environment, [Details]
(2017) 'Multi-objective dynamic economic emission dispatch using particle swarm optimisation variants'
Mason, Karl and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2017) 'Multi-objective dynamic economic emission dispatch using particle swarm optimisation variants'. Neurocomputing, 270 :188-197 [Details]
(2017) 'Policy invariance under reward transformations for multi-objective reinforcement learning'
Mannion, Patrick and Devlin, Sam and Mason, Karl and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2017) 'Policy invariance under reward transformations for multi-objective reinforcement learning'. Neurocomputing, 263 :60-73 [Details]
(2016) 'Exploring avoidance strategies and neighbourhood topologies in particle swarm optimisation'
Mason, Karl and Howley, Enda (2016) 'Exploring avoidance strategies and neighbourhood topologies in particle swarm optimisation'. International Journal of Swarm Intelligence, 2 (2-4):188-207 [DOI] [Details]

Conference Publications

  Year Publication
(2023) In Proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence for Sustainability Workshop (AI4S) at ECAI 2023
Lu, J., Mannion, P. and Mason, K. (2023) Go-Explore for Residential Energy Management In Proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence for Sustainability Workshop (AI4S) at ECAI 2023 [Details]
(2023) In Proceedings of the Adaptive and Learning Agents workshop (at AAMAS 2023)
Curley, S., Mason, K. and Mannion, P. (2023) Classification Based Approach to Identifying and Mitigating Adversarial Behaviours in Deep Reinforcement Learning Agents In Proceedings of the Adaptive and Learning Agents workshop (at AAMAS 2023) [Details]
(2023) In Proceedings of the Adaptive and Learning Agents workshop (at AAMAS 2023)
Callaghan, A., Mason, K. and Mannion, P. (2023) Evolutionary Strategy Guided Reinforcement Learning via MultiBuffer Communication In Proceedings of the Adaptive and Learning Agents workshop (at AAMAS 2023) [Details]
(2023) Proceedings of the The 22nd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS-23)
Curley, S., Mason, K. and Mannion, P. (2023) Know Your Enemy: Identifying and Adapting to Adversarial Attacks in Deep Reinforcement Learning Proceedings of the The 22nd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS-23) [Details]
(2023) In Proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence for Sustainability Workshop (AI4S) at ECAI 2023
Ali, N., Wahid, A., Shaw, R. and Mason, K. (2023) Reinforcement Learning for Battery Management in Dairy Farming In Proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence for Sustainability Workshop (AI4S) at ECAI 2023 [Details]
(2023) In Proceedings of the Deep Learning for Sustainable Precision Agriculture Workshop (DLSPA) at ECML PKDD 2023
Faiud, I., Schukat, M. and Mason, K. (2023) Modelling Solar PV Adoption in Irish Dairy Farms using Agent-Based Modelling In Proceedings of the Deep Learning for Sustainable Precision Agriculture Workshop (DLSPA) at ECML PKDD 2023 [Details]
(2023) In Proceedings of the Deep Learning for Sustainable Pre- cision Agriculture Workshop (DLSPA) at ECML PKDD 2023
Wahid, A., Faiud, I. and Mason, K. (2023) Integrating Renewable Energy in Agriculture: A Deep Reinforcement Learning-based Approach In Proceedings of the Deep Learning for Sustainable Pre- cision Agriculture Workshop (DLSPA) at ECML PKDD 2023 [Details]
(2023) In Proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence for Sustainability Workshop (AI4S) at ECAI 2023
Khaleghy, H., Wahid, A., Clifford, E. and Mason, K. (2023) Modelling Electricity Consumption in Irish Dairy Farms Using Agent-Based Modelling In Proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence for Sustainability Workshop (AI4S) at ECAI 2023 [Details]
(2023) Applications of Evolutionary Computation: 26th International Conference, EvoApplications 2023
Horgan, A., and Mason, K. (2023) Evolving Neural Networks for Robotic Arm Contro Applications of Evolutionary Computation: 26th International Conference, EvoApplications 2023 [Details]
(2023) In Proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence for Sustainability Workshop (AI4S) at ECAI 2023
Hua, W., Mullen, D., Wahid, A., Sitabkhan, K. and Mason, K. (2023) An Overview of Artificial Intel- ligence for Electric Vehicle Energy Systems Integration In Proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence for Sustainability Workshop (AI4S) at ECAI 2023 [Details]
(2023) In Proceedings of the Multi-Objective Decision Making Workshop (MODeM 2023) at ECAI 2023
Lu, J., Mannion, P. and Mason, K. (2023) Inferring Preferences from Demonstrations in Multi- Objective Residential Energy Management In Proceedings of the Multi-Objective Decision Making Workshop (MODeM 2023) at ECAI 2023 [Details]
(2023) Proceedings of the 37th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-23)
Curley, S., Mason, K. and Mannion, P. (2023) Know Your Enemy: Identifying Adversarial Behaviours in Deep Reinforcement Learning Agents Proceedings of the 37th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-23) [Details]
(2023) In Proceedings of the Autonomous Robots and Multirobot Systems (ARMS) Workshop (at AAMAS 2023)
Mason, K., and Hauert, S. (2023) Evolving Multi-Objective Neural Network Controllers for Robot Swarms In Proceedings of the Autonomous Robots and Multirobot Systems (ARMS) Workshop (at AAMAS 2023) [Details]
(2023) In Proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence for Sus- tainability Workshop (AI4S) at ECAI 2023
Shah, MIA., Wahid, A., Barrett, E. and Mason, K. (2023) A Multi-Agent Systems Approach for Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading in Dairy Farming In Proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence for Sus- tainability Workshop (AI4S) at ECAI 2023 [Details]
(2023) In Proceedings of the Adaptive and Learning Agents workshop (at AAMAS 2023)
Lu, J., Mannion, P. and Mason, K. (2023) Inferring Preferences from Demonstrations in Multi- objective Reinforcement Learning: A Dynamic Weight-based Approach In Proceedings of the Adaptive and Learning Agents workshop (at AAMAS 2023) [Details]
(2021) 2021 IEEE Texas Power and Energy Conference (TPEC)
Vejdan, S., Mason, K., Reno, M and Grijalva, S. (2021) Detecting Behind-the-Meter PV Installation Using Convolutional Neural Networks 2021 IEEE Texas Power and Energy Conference (TPEC) [Details]
(2021) In IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation
Mason, K. and Grijalva, S. (2021) Building HVAC Control via Neural Networks and Natural Evolution Strategies In IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation [Details]
(2019) IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data)
Mason, Karl and Vejdan, Sadegh and Grijalva, Santiago (2019) An On The Fly Framework for Efficiently Generating Synthetic Big Data Sets IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data) [Details]
(2018) Adaptive and Learning Agents Workshop (at ICML-AAMAS 2018)
Mason, Karl and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2018) Maze Navigation using Neural Networks Evolved with Novelty Search and Differential Evolution Adaptive and Learning Agents Workshop (at ICML-AAMAS 2018) [Details]
(2017) Adaptive and Learning Agents workshop (at AAMAS 2017)
Mannion, Patrick and Devlin, Sam and Mason, Karl and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2017) Potential-Based Reward Shaping Preserves Pareto Optimal Policies Adaptive and Learning Agents workshop (at AAMAS 2017) [Details]
(2017) The 8th International Workshop on Cloud Applications and Security
Duggan, Martin and Mason, Karl and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda and Barrett, Enda (2017) Predicting Host CPU Utilization in Cloud Computing using Recurrent Neural Networks The 8th International Workshop on Cloud Applications and Security [Details]
(2017) Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion
Mason, Karl and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2017) Evolving multi-objective neural networks using differential evolution for dynamic economic emission dispatch Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion , pp.1287-1294 [Details]
(2017) Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion
Mason, Karl and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2017) Neural network topology and weight optimization through neuro differential evolution Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion , pp.213-214 [Details]
(2016) ANTS 2016 International Conference in Swarm Intelligence
Mason, Karl and Kellehan, Caitriona and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2016) Particle Swarm Optimisation with Diversity Influenced Gradually Increasing Neighbourhoods ANTS 2016 International Conference in Swarm Intelligence [Details]
(2016) ANTS 2016 International Conference in Swarm Intelligence
Mason, Karl and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2016) Avoidance Strategies for Particle Swarm Optimisation in Power Generation Scheduling ANTS 2016 International Conference in Swarm Intelligence [Details]
(2016) Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Autonomous Agents \& Multiagent Systems
Mannion, Patrick and Mason, Karl and Devlin, Sam and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2016) Multi-objective dynamic dispatch optimisation using multi-agent reinforcement learning Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Autonomous Agents \& Multiagent Systems , pp.1345-1346 [Details]
(2016) Proceedings of the Adaptive and Learning Agents workshop (at AAMAS 2016)
Mason, Karl and Mannion, Patrick and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2016) Applying multi-agent reinforcement learning to watershed management Proceedings of the Adaptive and Learning Agents workshop (at AAMAS 2016) [Details]
(2016) International Conference on Soft Computing-MENDEL
Mason, Karl and Howley, Enda (2016) Avoidance strategies in particle swarm optimisation International Conference on Soft Computing-MENDEL , pp.3-15 [Details]
(2016) Proceedings of the Adaptive and Learning Agents workshop (at AAMAS 2016)
Mannion, Patrick and Mason, Karl and Devlin, Sam and Duggan, Jim and Howley, Enda (2016) Dynamic economic emissions dispatch optimisation using multi-agent reinforcement learning Proceedings of the Adaptive and Learning Agents workshop (at AAMAS 2016) [Details]

Thesis

  Year Publication
(2018) PhD Thesis, Advances in Evolutionary Neural Networks with Applications in Energy Systems and the Environment.
Mason, Karl (2018) PhD Thesis, Advances in Evolutionary Neural Networks with Applications in Energy Systems and the Environment. Thesis [Details]
(2015) MSc Thesis, Avoidance techniques & neighbourhood topologies in particle swarm optimisation.
Mason, Karl (2015) MSc Thesis, Avoidance techniques & neighbourhood topologies in particle swarm optimisation. Thesis [Details]

Honours and Awards

  Year Title Awarding Body
2022 Charlemont Award Royal Irish Academy
2018 Nominated for 2018 EurAI Artificial Intelligence Dissertation Award European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI)

Professional Associations

  Association Function From / To
IEEE member /
International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) TC12 Work Group 11: AI for Energy and Sustainability. Member /

Committees

  Committee Function From / To
School of Computer Science Internationalization Member 01-DEC-23 /
Organizing Committee: Artificial Intelligence for Sustainability Workshop (at ECAI 2023) Member 01-JAN-23 / 31-OCT-24
Organizing Committee: Deep Learning for Sustainable Precision Agriculture Workshop (at ECML PKDD 2023) Member 01-JAN-23 / 31-OCT-23
Programme Board Artificial Intelligence for Professionals (PgCert) Member 01-SEP-22 /
PhD Student Graduate Research Committee Member 01-SEP-21 /
Program Committee: AAMAS conference Member 01-JAN-21 /
Program Committee: Neuroevolution at Work (NEWK) Workshop, at GECCO (ACM) Member 01-JAN-21 /
Programme Board Data Analytics and Visualisation (PDip) Member 01-DEC-20 /
School of Computer Science Research and Graduate Studies Member 01-NOV-20 /
Senior Program Committee: ECAI conference Member 01-JAN-20 / 31-DEC-20
Program Committee: ALA Workshop at AAMAS Member 01-JAN-20 /
Program Committee: AAAI conference Member 01-JAN-20 /
Program Committee: IJCAI conference Member 01-JAN-20 / 31-DEC-20

Education

  Year Institution Qualification Subject
2018 University of Galway PhD Computer Science
2015 University of Galway MSc Software Design & Development
2013 University of Galway BSc Science

Languages

  Language
English
French
Irish

Teaching Interests

Data Science
Programming
Python
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning

Current Postgraduate Students (Research)

  Student Degree Type Type
Hossein Khaleghy Doctorate - Structured Ph.D (Engineering) Supervisor
Sean Caulfield Curley Doctorate - Structured Ph.D (Engineering) Co-supervisor (1)
Adam Callaghan Doctorate - Structured Ph.D (Engineering) Co-supervisor (1)
Junlin Lu Doctorate - Structured Ph.D (Engineering) Supervisor
Mian Ibad Ali Shah Doctorate - Structured Ph.D (Engineering) Supervisor
Nawazish Ali Doctorate - Structured Ph.D (Engineering) Supervisor
Iias Faiud Doctorate - Structured Ph.D (Engineering) Supervisor
Jonaid Shianifar Doctorate - Structured Ph.D (Engineering) Supervisor

Modules Taught

  Term/Year Module Title Module Code Subject / Desc
2021 Introduction to AI CT5181
2021 Applied Data Science in R CT5163
2023 Algorithms CT1120
2023 Programming for Data Science CT5198
2021 Programming CT103

External Collaborators

  Name Organisation / Institute Country Description of Collaboration
Dr. Weiqi Hua University of Birmingham
Dr. Sabine Hauert University of Bristol
Dr. Sam Devlin Microsoft Research, UK
Prof. Meysam Quadrdan Cardiff University
Prof. Santiago Grijalva Georgia Institute of Technology