Vamplew, Peter (Prof)

PositionProfessor Peter Vamplew
OfficeT134 (Mt Helen)
Phone +61 3 5327 9616
Emailp.vamplew@federation.edu.au

Qualifications

  • B.A., B. Sc. (Hons) – Flinders
  • PhD – University of Tasmania
  • Graduate Certificate in Leadership in Education and Training, Victoria University

Biography

Peter Vamplew is a Professor of Information Technology at Federation University’s Mt Helen campus, following previous academic roles at the University of Tasmania and the University of Ballarat (Federation University’s predecessor institution). He has previously erved in several research leadership roles including Associate Dean (Research) for Science and Technology, Element Leader for the Collaborative Research Network, Deputy Director of the Centre for Informatics and Applied Optimization, and two terms as Acting Director of the Internet Commerce Security Laboratory.

Since 2008 he has played a leading role in establishing multi-objective reinforcement learning (MORL) as a sub-field of reinforcement learning, explicitly designed for problems with multiple conflicting objectives (which describes most real-world problems). More recently he has been studying the role which MORL can play in creating human-aligned artificial intelligence. His contributions in this area are reflected by his appointment as a senior member of the Future of Life Institute’s Existential AI Safety Research Community. He has been an associate editor for Neurocomputing journal, and guest editor of special issues of Neurocomputing and JAAMAS on MORL and multi-objective decision-making, and an invited speaker at the Adaptive Learning Agents workshop and the Workshop on Human-aligned Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Agents and Robots. He is also an experienced supervisor of Masters and PhD research students.

He co-founded the Federation Learning Agents Group, an RL-focused research group which has evolved into the Australian Responsible Autonomous Agents Collective (ARAAC), reflecting its shift in focus and expansion to include members across multiple Australian universities. He is also an active member of two Federation University research centres: the Centre for Smart Analytics (CSA) and the Health Innovation and Transformation Centre (HITC).

Teaching areas

My teaching duties focus on the area of computer games design and development, programming, artificial intelligence and research skills.

I also coordinate the IT Professional Experience courses which require students to engage with the IT industry.

Extended research profile