Inaugural Lecture: Professor Evangelos Pournaras, School of Computer Science
- Date: Wednesday 1 October 2025, 15:45 – 18:00
- Location: Esther Simpson Building, Lyddon Terrace, Woodhouse, Leeds LS2
- Type: Inaugural Lecture
- Cost: Free of charge, registration required
Join us on 1 October for the upcoming Inaugural Lecture of Evangelos Pournaras, Professor of Trustworthy Distributed Intelligence in the School of Computer Science.
An inaugural lecture is a significant milestone in any academic’s career, recognising their promotion to Professor. It also offers an opportunity for our new professorial colleagues to showcase their work and innovative research with a broad audience, including members of the public, family, friends, and colleagues.
This lecture is part of a Faculty-wide series that celebrates those who have joined the University to offer ever greater teaching, research, and expertise across our eight Schools.
About this lecture
In his inaugural lecture, “Another Intelligence: Distributed socio-technical systems to trust for a sustainable and democratic society”, Professor Pournaras will unravel his vision for a sustainable and democratic society based on trustworthy distributed intelligence.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how cities work and how people participate in decisions that affect them. It can make complex systems like energy and transport run more smoothly and give citizens better tools to voice their choices. But these opportunities also bring risks, raising tough questions about privacy, fairness, and trust in our democracies.
This talk will share real-world examples of how AI can be used responsibly, such as helping people choose sustainable products, improving how cities manage shared resources, and exploring fairer ways to vote. It will also look ahead to how humans and AI are evolving together, and what this means for building trust in the future.
About our speaker
Evangelos Pournaras is Professor of Trustworthy Distributed Intelligence in the School of Computer Science. He is also a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Research Associate at the UCL Centre of Blockchain Technologies.
His expertise focuses on human-artificial intelligence, including applications of distributed social-technical systems for sustainable Smart Cities and digital democracy. Evangelos has won the Augmented Democracy Prize, the 1st prize at ETH Policy Challenge, as well as five paper awards and honours, including the listing of two of his projects by the UNESCO IRCAI Global Top 100.
Evangelos has been an Alan Turing Fellow, and has more than five years of research experience at ETH Zurich after completing his PhD studies at Delft University of Technology. Evangelos has also been a visiting researcher at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and has industry experience at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center.
Book your place
The lecture will take place in the Esther Simpson Building at the University of Leeds, with arrival and registration from 3:45pm in the café, and the lecture commencing at 4pm in Lecture Theatre 1.01. This will be followed by a drinks reception in the Esther Simpson café at 5pm.
Booking is required to attend this event – you can do so at our dedicated ticket portal. Please book by Monday 29 September 2025.