Leeds machine learning expert selected for prestigious DAFNI Fellowship
New national funding will support Leeds research into how AI and physical modelling can strengthen UK infrastructure resilience.
Associate Professor Xiaohui Chen, from the School of Civil Engineering, has been named to the 2026 cohort of DAFNI Fellows, a nationally competitive scheme that supports research into resilient infrastructure, extreme weather, and future decision-making systems.
Dr Chen said: “I am delighted to be selected as a DAFNI Fellow. This fellowship provides an exciting opportunity to advance next-generation AI-for-Science frameworks that combine physical modelling with data-driven approaches to support resilient national infrastructure systems.
“Through this fellowship, we hope to develop trustworthy and reusable digital tools for infrastructure and environmental risk prediction, while strengthening collaboration between academia, industry, and government.”
The fellowship is part of the Data & Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure (DAFNI), a national platform that supports advanced infrastructure modelling and analysis. Fellows receive funding to support research activity, collaboration, and engagement with partners across academia, industry, and government.
This year’s cohort was selected from 116 applicants spanning a wide range of disciplines and career stages. Projects include resilient transport networks, climate-ready electricity systems, urban flood resilience, and railway disruption modelling.
Brian Matthews, DAFNI Leader, said the initiative supports both research development and long-term collaboration across the infrastructure community.
He said: “The fellowship scheme will help further the aims of the Centre of Excellence, identifying research approaches to the challenges of safeguarding the security and resilience of national infrastructure. In addition, we operate a ‘once a DAFNI Fellow, always a DAFNI Fellow’ initiative, ensuring strong connections for the future.”
Each Fellow receives £10,000 to support staff time, travel, conferences, workshops, and knowledge-exchange activities. Researchers will also work with the DAFNI team to integrate their data and models into the platform, enabling future reuse and collaboration.
DAFNI was established to support large-scale infrastructure research across the UK, bringing together data analysis, modelling and visualisation to address challenges linked to resilience, sustainability, and whole-system thinking.
The 2026 DAFNI Fellowship runs from April 2026 to June 2027. You can learn more about this year’s fellows at the DAFNI website.
Further information
- Image caption: Xiaohui Chen (front row, fourth from left) standing alongside other 2026 DAFNI Fellows (image credit: DAFNI).
- For media enquiries, please contact Faculty Communications Manager Matt Gardner at M.D.Gardner@leeds.ac.uk.
