Meet Professor Carmine Ventre - new interim Head of Informatics

How does it feel to be the interim Head of Department for Informatics?

Taking up this role feels like a nice opportunity to build on the recent successes of the Department and help move it to the next stage. I’m focused on helping the talent we have in the Department fulfil their potential.

What are your priorities for your time as Head of Department?

I want to make it a successful year with the large student intake that we had. That means overseeing recruitment and all the activities with the same level of quality as previous years. That is my main objective.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and career to date, as well as some highlights?

I completed by studies in Italy, first my undergraduate and then MSc in Computer Science. I was awarded my PhD in 2007 after defending my thesis on theoretical advances in design of incentive-compatible mechanisms.

I came to the UK as a postdoctoral researcher, which was supposed to just be one year. I’ve now been in the UK for 18 years. My research focuses on AI for algorithmic trading and finance, and Cryptography and security.

I’m proud of the group we’ve set up in Computational Finance at King’s – from nothing, we’ve become world leaders in this area. And, when we launched the King’s Festival of Artificial Intelligence last year and it was a success – that was a highlight.

You wear many hats at King’s, including the Director of the King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence – how do you balance all the different roles?

There are a lot of synergies between the Department and the Institute. The Department is led by authority and the Institute is led by influence so there’s a nice convergence there but of course there are challenges.

The Department of Informatics covers the technical aspect of AI but the Institute covers areas across different Departments, so it requires more coordination. It’s interesting but the demand is challenging.

If you were stranded on a desert island and could only take one piece of music, one tool and one famous person – who or what would you take and why?

For my piece of music, I’m going to go sentimental. Anything I could get my daughter to record because she has a nice voice.

I'm very visual when I do my research so for my tool, I’ll take a notebook and a pen.

Choosing a famous person is complicated because I don’t have idols. Maybe Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti, I think he would be good to learn from. He seems to be able to get a lot of talent together without people moaning and he’s always very calm under pressure. He also likes food so he could be good company food-wise.