Adrian Low is an Essex man, he obtained his BSc(Hons) Maths and Computing from the University of East Anglia, then an MSc in Operational Research from Hull University. He worked, initially, at Westminster Medical School in the Department of Community Medicine as a statistician and lecturer in applied statistics, where he wrote his first paper on 100 years of British suicide. He then went to work for Norwich City College as a lecturer in Maths and Computing, during which he studied for a Cert Ed and a Dip FE with Leeds University. In 1984 he went to Staffordshire as a senior lecturer, and started a family.
In 1990 he went to Sandwell College of FE and HE as the Head of School of Computing. At the time the college was the largest in the UK. He returned to Staffordshire, preferring higher education, late in 1991 and was promoted to principal lecturer and then Associate Dean in 1998. Since then he has fulfilled learning and teaching roles, quality, resources, international and, most recently, scholarship, enterprise and research. In 2010 he completed an MA in Theology and Pastoral Studies at Nottingham University as part of part-time training for the priesthood. He was ordained in 2010, initially working in spare time as a curate in the parishes of Alrewas, Fradley and Wychnor. He retired from the University in April 2014 and began a 14 month paid second curacy with the Church of England in the benefice of Abbots Bromley, Blithfield, Colton, Colwich and Great Haywood in Saffordshire. Since September 2015 he is now living and working in Estepona on the Costa del Sol (West) as an Anglican priest with responsibility for two English-speaking churches one in San Pedro and the other at Sotogrande. (see www.costachurch.com).
He is interested in computer vision (particularly 3D reconstruction), chaos, fractals and computational language theory; but also non-determinism in quantum events, and the theological implications of such events. He has written two books on Computer Vision and supervised PhDs in that area. He has two further books on the go, though because they are on science and theology, finding a publisher is much more tricky! He is an occasional contributor to the Church Times on issues relating Science and Religion.
He was chair of the National IT in FE conference for fifteen years, chair of the BCS FE panel for five years, and has held many external examiner posts in different universities over the last 30 years. He is still on the National Accreditation Committee of the British Computer Society (despite being resident in Spain) and regularly visits universities across the country and occasionally internationally, to chair accreditation panels.
He plays the piano, builds dodgy-quality websites and enjoys summers in his family’s French house.
Professional memberships and activities
- British Computer Society
- Higher Education Academy
- Member of the UK BCS accreditation committee.
Academic qualifications
- BSc(Hons) Maths and Computing,
- MSc Operational Research,
- MA Theology and Pastoral Studies,
- FBCS,
- CEng,
- CITP,
- CertEd,
- DipFE,
- FHEA
Expertise
- Computer vision and image processing, systems for managing and leadership in Higher Education,
- Also, some occasionally frustrating expertise with electric bikes.
Publications
A Selection of Publications (some available on-line)
- 2015 When God plays biased dice, Church Times, UK, Issue 7950, 31st July, pp 11
- 2015 Church emails:handle with care, Church Times, UK, Issue 7939, 15th May, pp 18
- 2015 Taking a journey into the infinite, Church Times, UK, Issue 7920, 2nd January, pp 12 2012
- Every day could be a new Christmas somewhere, Church Times, UK, Issue 7772, 2nd March
- 2010 (unpublished) Offshoring Services: An IT Human-to-Human Communications Perspective, delivered in the Fourth Advanced Computing and Communications Technologies Conference, IEE sponsored, APIIT SD INDIA, (Oct 30th 2010)
- 2010 The feasibility of, and theological and pastoral implication of divine activity accomplished through amplified quantum events Unpublished dissertation for MA, Nottingham University.
- 2009 Introductory Computer Vision, Imaging Techniques and Solutions, BS Publications, 2008, 314pp, ISBN 81-7800-197-7
- 2006 Low A A, Huang I, James G, “Providing Cultural Change Modules for International Students in UK Higher Education”, Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Higher Education Academy 2006
- 2005 Editor: Proceedings of the 2005 conference Teaching IT in FE, Staffordshire University.
- 2005 Low A A, “From Pure to Applied – a study on Higher Education Technology Development”, Proceedings of the 2005 conference Teaching IT in FE, Staffordshire University
- 2004 Low A A, “Recruiting Computing Students from abroad”, Proceedings of the 2004 conference Teaching IT in FE, Staffordshire University
- 2004 League Table Research reported in Computer Weekly, “Table helps bosses rate IT courses”, with Bill Goodwin, November 2nd, 2004
- 2004 Editor: Proceedings of the 2004 conference Teaching IT in FE, Staffordshire University.
- 2003 Editor: Proceedings of the 2003 conference Teaching IT in FE, Staffordshire University ISBN 1897898630-4
- 2002 Turcat JP, Chibelushi CC & Low AA, “Object-Based Image Description and Query Refinement in a 3D Iconic Environment”, Proc. of the Fifth Asian Conf. On Computer Vision, Melbourne, Australia, 23-25 January 2002
- 2002 Editor: Proceedings of the 2002 conference Teaching IT in FE, Staffordshire University ISBN 1897898630-3
- 2001 Editor: Proceedings of the 2000 conference Teaching IT in FE, Staffordshire University ISBN 1897898762
- 2001 Turcat JP, Chibelushi CC & Low AA, “Comparative Assessment of Hough Transform Techniques for Image Retrieval Using Approximate Shape Queries”, Proc. Of the Int.Conf. on Visualization, Imaging and Image Processing, Marbella, Spain, 3-5 September 2001
- 2001 Bourel F, Chibelushi CC & Low AA, “Detection of Facial Occlusion during Tracking”, Proc. Of the Int.Conf. on Visualization, Imaging and Image Processing, Marbella, Spain, 3-5 September 2001
- 2001 Editor: Proceedings of the 2001 conference Teaching IT in FE, Staffordshire University ISBN 1897898630-2
- 2001 Bourel F, Chibelushi CC & Low AA, “Recognition of Facial Expressions in the Presence of Occlusion”, Proc. Of the Twelfth British Machine Vision Conf. Manchester, UK, 10-13 September 2001
- 1997 AA Low & GS Emery, ‘An application of Autocorrelation to the identification of tree types from satellite images’, Proceedings of the Sixth International IEE Conference on Image Processing and its Applications, Vol 1 pp294-297, ISBN 0-85296-692-X, IEE, 1997
- 1995 ‘Teaching computer systems - beyond the traditional’, Advanced in Teaching Computing, SEDA, 1995
- 1994 'Applying Computer Imagery to the Collection of Data for Clinical Trials', Proceedings of the First World Congress on Computational Medicine Public Health and Biotechnology, vol II, World Scientific, pp 707-714, Austin Texas, ISBN 981-02-2969-0
- 1994 'An investigation of intelligent compression of X-ray images', (with Jim Tebbutt), Proceedings of the First World Congress on Computational Medicine Public Health and Biotechnology, vol II, World Scientific, pp 701-706 Austin Texas, ISBN 981-02-2969-0
- 1993 'Franchising - the way forward', Proceedings of the 1993 Conference for Course Leaders and Lecturers on BTEC First and National Computing and Information Technology Courses, Stafford, UK
- 1991 Introductory Computer Vision and Image Processing, McGraw Hill. ISBN 007-707403-3, 244pp
- 1987 ‘Response time to process charts’, Computer Education, 52.
- 1987 All for IT’, Times Educational Supplement, May 1987.
- 1987 ‘Finding IT through the MISTT’, Computer Education, 54.
- 1987 ‘Brief is beautiful’, Computer Bulletin, June 1987.
- 1985 ‘Process charts - a structured approach to program design in schools’, Computer Education, 50.
- 1981 Regression analysis of British suicide data: ‘A survey of 100 years of suicide, 1876-1975’, Psychological Medicine, 11, 1981, pp 359-368. Undertaken within a team of researchers studying suicide, working from the then Regional Health Authority Research Centre at Westminster.