Professor’s portrait: Research performs an important function
The connection between data algorithms and AI (artificial intelligence) has long fascinated Mattias Ohlsson. As newly-appointed Professor of Information Technology, it is a subject that he hopes to be able to investigate together with his colleagues in Halmstad..
“My research area borders on AI, to get computers to display intelligent behaviour. It’s very exciting and there’s a great deal of pressure on this type of knowledge in industry. For my part, I started to take an interest at an early stage in a special kind of AI – algorithms known as artificial neural networks.”
Mattias Ohlsson is a new employee at Halmstad University. As a researcher in the field of information technology, he has focused particularly on data mining and machine learning.
“For the latter, in the first instance it’s not about saying what the algorithms should do, but rather about teaching them by showing lots of examples, which in a way resembles the way we humans learn.”
Machine learning crucial to modern society
Mattias Ohlsson mentions several areas in which machine learning is and will be crucial to the development of modern society – with self-driving cars being perhaps one of the most obvious examples.
“Machine learning plays a very important role here in getting the car to behave properly. I believe that there will be a lot happening in this area in the next ten to twenty years. If I have grandchildren at some point, they will probably not need to take a driving test.”
Mattias Ohlsson began his academic career by studying Physics at Lund University in the mid-1980s. He has been working there for a couple of decades now, including as senior lecturer in Computational Biology and Biological Physics.
“My research has focused primarily on medicine and biology. Among other things, I’ve been involved in the development of a product used to interpret special images of the heart. In Halmstad, the research group will be bigger than the one in Lund. I hope to continue to research here with a focus on health and medical care, to be able to assist in medical decisions and practical clinical issues.”
How does your research make a difference?
“By developing various aids for healthcare, my research performs an important function, for example helping doctors to interpret images or suggesting a diagnosis.”
Mattias Ohlsson believes that machine learning will move closer and closer to AI in the future.
“I believe that much of what we see in science fiction today is what we will actually experience in the future. For example, robots will become so intelligent that their behaviour will be difficult to distinguish from human behaviour.”
Text: Hanna Grosshög
Film: Ida Fridvall and Hanna Grosshög
About Mattias Ohlsson
Mattias Ohlsson was born in 1967 in Hultsfred Municipality. His academic career began at Lund University, where he studied Physics in the mid-1980s. It was also here that he defended his doctorate in 1995 with a thesis entitled “Artificial Neural Networks and Combinatorial Optimization”. Mattias Ohlsson’s research is primarily about machine learning in medicine and biology, and he has done a lot of inter-disciplinary work with various researchers and doctors. In 2004 he became a Docent and in 2018 he was appointed Professor of Information Technology, specialising in Machine Learning and Data Mining at Halmstad University
