Professor Blake is a pioneer in the development of the theory and algorithms that make it possible for computers to behave as seeing machines. His interests are primarily in automating the analysis of images and tracking the movement of objects in 3D scenes. His career has been divided between academia – as junior faculty in Edinburgh in the 1980s, and later in Oxford as Professor of Engineering Science and Fellow of Exeter College. At the turn of the millenium, he moved to Cambridge to join Microsoft’s newly established European research lab. He became Lab Director (2010-15), winning the Silver medal and, with his team, the Gold medal of the Royal Academy of Engineering, for research and technology for 3D machine vision. He was inaugural Director of the Alan Turing Institute (2015-18) and established Samsung’s European AI lab in Cambridge (2018-22). He is a consultant in Artificial Intelligence, advising major European companies and a variety of startups. He mentors numerous budding scientists and engineers. He received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Sheffield and Edinburgh in 2013, and was elected an Honorary Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford in 2024.

Professor Blake says, “It is an honour to take on this role, especially as we are nearing the 60th anniversary of Clare Hall. I look forward to helping advance the strategic aims of the College, and serving our diverse and global community as best I can during my term as Vice-President.”

We would also like to take this time to thank Helen Pennant for the wonderful job she has done during her term as Vice-President from 2020 to 2024. She is the first woman to fill this role at Clare Hall. Helen has been a Fellow of Clare Hall since July 2013, when she arrived in Cambridge from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver to take up her role as Director of the Cambridge Commonwealth, European and International Trust.