Professor Paul Newman CBE

Professor Paul Newman CBE FREng FIEEE FIET is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Oxa, a global leader in autonomous vehicle (AV) technology, and holds the BP Chair of Information Engineering at the University of Oxford. A pioneer in mobile robotics with over 30,000 academic citations, Paul has spent his career inventing the fundamental techniques that allow machines to know where they are, what surrounds them, and what they should do next — with applications spanning from the Mars Rover to sub-sea and land vehicles.

After earning his M.Eng from Oxford (Balliol College) in 1995, Paul completed a PhD in autonomous navigation at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, followed by work in the commercial sub-sea navigation industry. In 2000, he joined MIT’s Department of Ocean Engineering as a research scientist focusing on navigation software. Returning to Oxford in 2003, he became a Fellow of New College in 2005, Professor of Engineering Science in 2010, and ultimately the BP Professor of Information Engineering and a Fellow of Keble College in 2012.

In 2014, he co-founded Oxa (formerly Oxbotica) to commercialise his lab’s technology, and in 2016, became the Founding Director of the Oxford Robotics Institute. He also co-authored the UK’s Robotics and Autonomous Systems Strategy and served on the Department for Transport’s Scientific Advisory Council. His contributions have earned him Fellowships with the Royal Academy of Engineering, the IEEE, and the IET, alongside the Royal Academy’s prestigious Silver Medal.