News Story

KMi’s Next Director is Finally Announced!

Kiran Parmar, Thursday 7 Apr 2022

KMi is excited to announce that Professor Harith Alani has been appointed as KMi’s 5th director. Harith will be taking up his post on the 1st of August, once Professor John Domingue steps down after seven years as director. Harith joined KMi in 2009 as a Senior Lecturer, then progressed to full Professor a few years later and became KMi’s Deputy Director in 2021. Harith is a Professor of Web Science and founder of the interdisciplinary Social Data Science group in KMi. He has published nearly 170 refereed scientific articles in the areas of the semantic web, web science, and computational social science. Harith holds a first degree in civil engineering from the University of Baghdad and an MSc and PhD in computer science from the University of South Wales. Prior to joining KMi, he was a senior research fellow at the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton.

"KMi has always been an inspiring place, offering world-leading research and innovation within a truly diverse and friendly environment and culture," said Professor Alani. "I am honoured and delighted to take over as the Director of KMi, and I look forward to serving this fantastic organisation and its wonderful team."

The Open University’s Executive Dean (STEM), Professor Nicholas Braithwaite, said, "I am delighted to announce that following successful recruitment, Professor Harith Alani will take up the position of KMi Director."

Our current Director, John Domingue, said, "I am extremely happy that Harith will take over after my tenure finishes – never has the phrase ‘to go from strength to strength’ been truer. I’m really looking forward to revolutionary, ground-breaking innovations in knowledge, learning and media that will come out of this wonderful lab over the next few years under his tenure."

A huge Congratulations to Harith from the whole KMi Team.