Biography
Dr Parker Jones leads the Neural Processing Lab (PNPL) in Information Engineering and the Oxford Robotics Institute, focusing on machine learning, neuroscience, and robotics, with the aim of developing practical brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for paralysed individuals.
PNPL has released over 100 hours of non-invasive brain data, including the LibriBrain and LibriBrain100 datasets, which have been used for open machine-learning competitions (e.g. https://libribrain.com/) to benchmark neural decoding tasks such as speech detection, phoneme classification, and word classification. The methods and models developed by PNPL have achieved state-of-the-art performance on difficult decoding tasks, such as full brain-to-text using non-invasive electrophysiology.
Dr Parker Jones also writes about the languages of Polynesia and develops speech and language technology for the Hawaiian-speaking community that he grew up in (e.g. low-resource Automatic Speech Recognition and Natural Language Processing).
Research Interests
Dr Parker Jones's research has appeared in scientific journals such as Science and Brain, and at leading AI conferences such as NeurIPS, ICLR, and ICML. His work is funded by the MRC, Royal Society, ARIA, Encode, and NSF, with a common focus on scaling up datasets and on data-efficient modelling for real-world neural, language, and robotics systems.
His research interests are:
- Machine Learning
- Neuroscience
- Robotics
- BCIs
- Low-resource ASR and NLP
Recent Publications
Acoustic properties of utterance-initial glottal stop in Hawaiian.
Roon KD, Davidson L & Parker Jones ʻ (2026), The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 159(5), 4038-4055
BibTeX
@article{acousticpropert-2026/5,
title={Acoustic properties of utterance-initial glottal stop in Hawaiian.},
author={Roon KD, Davidson L & Parker Jones ʻ},
journal={The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America},
volume={159},
pages={4038-4055},
year = "2026"
}
Modelling Discrete States and Long-Term Dynamics in Functional Brain Networks
Cho S, Huang R, Gohil C, Parker Jones O & Woolrich MW (2025)
BibTeX
@misc{modellingdiscre-2025/9,
title={Modelling Discrete States and Long-Term Dynamics in Functional Brain Networks},
author={Cho S, Huang R, Gohil C, Parker Jones O & Woolrich MW},
year = "2025"
}
Dissociating Cerebellar Regions Involved in Formulating and Articulating Words and Sentences.
Parker Jones O, Geva S, Prejawa S, Hope TMH, Oberhuber M et al. (2024), Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.), 5(3), 795-817
BibTeX
@article{dissociatingcer-2024/8,
title={Dissociating Cerebellar Regions Involved in Formulating and Articulating Words and Sentences.},
author={Parker Jones O, Geva S, Prejawa S, Hope TMH, Oberhuber M et al.},
journal={Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.)},
volume={5},
pages={795-817},
publisher={MIT Press},
year = "2024"
}
Dynamic Network Analysis of Electrophysiological Task Data
Gohil C, Kohl O, Huang R, van Es MWJ, Jones OP et al. (2024), Imaging Neuroscience
BibTeX
@article{dynamicnetworka-2024/7,
title={Dynamic Network Analysis of Electrophysiological Task Data},
author={Gohil C, Kohl O, Huang R, van Es MWJ, Jones OP et al.},
journal={Imaging Neuroscience},
publisher={MIT Press},
year = "2024"
}
Oscillating latent dynamics in robot systems during walking and reaching
Parker Jones O, Mitchell A, Yamada J, Merkt W, Geisert M et al. (2024), Scientific Reports, 14(1)
BibTeX
@article{oscillatinglate-2024/5,
title={Oscillating latent dynamics in robot systems during walking and reaching},
author={Parker Jones O, Mitchell A, Yamada J, Merkt W, Geisert M et al.},
journal={Scientific Reports},
volume={14},
number={11434},
publisher={Springer Nature},
year = "2024"
}
The role of recoverability in the implementation of non-phonemic glottalization in Hawaiian
Davidson L & Parker Jones O (2024), Linguistics Vanguard: A Multimodal Journal for the Language Sciences, 10(1), 3-15
BibTeX
@article{theroleofrecove-2024/5,
title={The role of recoverability in the implementation of non-phonemic glottalization in Hawaiian},
author={Davidson L & Parker Jones O},
journal={Linguistics Vanguard: A Multimodal Journal for the Language Sciences},
volume={10},
pages={3-15},
publisher={De Gruyter},
year = "2024"
}
Mai Ho'omāuna i ka 'Ai: Language Models Improve Automatic Speech Recognition in Hawaiian
Chaparala K, Zarrella G, Fischer BT, Kimura L & Jones OP (2024)
BibTeX
@misc{maihoomunaikaai-2024/4,
title={Mai Ho'omāuna i ka 'Ai: Language Models Improve Automatic Speech
Recognition in Hawaiian},
author={Chaparala K, Zarrella G, Fischer BT, Kimura L & Jones OP},
year = "2024"
}
DreamUp3D: object-centric generative models for single-view 3D scene understanding and real-to-sim transfer
Wu Y, Sáez de Ocáriz Borde H, Collins J, Jones OP & Posner I (2024), IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 9(4), 3291-3298
BibTeX
@article{dreamupdobjectc-2024/2,
title={DreamUp3D: object-centric generative models for single-view 3D scene understanding and real-to-sim transfer},
author={Wu Y, Sáez de Ocáriz Borde H, Collins J, Jones OP & Posner I},
journal={IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters},
volume={9},
pages={3291-3298},
publisher={IEEE},
year = "2024"
}
Interpretable many-class decoding for MEG
Csaky R, Van Es M, Parker Jones O & Woolrich M (2023), NeuroImage, 282
BibTeX
@article{interpretablema-2023/10,
title={Interpretable many-class decoding for MEG},
author={Csaky R, Van Es M, Parker Jones O & Woolrich M},
journal={NeuroImage},
volume={282},
number={120396},
publisher={Elsevier},
year = "2023"
}
Group-level brain decoding with deep learning
Csaky R, Van Es M, Parker Jones O & Woolrich M (2023), Human Brain Mapping, 44(17), 6105-6119
BibTeX
@article{grouplevelbrain-2023/9,
title={Group-level brain decoding with deep learning},
author={Csaky R, Van Es M, Parker Jones O & Woolrich M},
journal={Human Brain Mapping},
volume={44},
pages={6105-6119},
publisher={Wiley},
year = "2023"
}
VAE-Loco: versatile quadruped locomotion by learning a disentangled gait representation
Mitchell AL, Merkt WX, Geisert M, Gangapurwala S, Engelcke M et al. (2023), IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 39(5), 3805-3820
BibTeX
@article{vaelocoversatil-2023/7,
title={VAE-Loco: versatile quadruped locomotion by learning a disentangled gait representation},
author={Mitchell AL, Merkt WX, Geisert M, Gangapurwala S, Engelcke M et al.},
journal={IEEE Transactions on Robotics},
volume={39},
pages={3805-3820},
publisher={IEEE},
year = "2023"
}
Word-level prosodic and metrical influences on Hawaiian glottal stop realization
Davidson L & Parker Jones O (2023), Phonetica, 80(3–4), 225-258
BibTeX
@article{wordlevelprosod-2023/6,
title={Word-level prosodic and metrical influences on Hawaiian glottal stop realization},
author={Davidson L & Parker Jones O},
journal={Phonetica},
volume={80},
pages={225-258},
publisher={De Gruyter},
year = "2023"
}
Touching a NeRF: leveraging neural radiance fields for tactile sensory data generation
Zhong S, Albini A, Parker Jones O, Maiolino P & Posner H (2023), 205, 1618-1628
BibTeX
@inproceedings{touchinganerfle-2023/3,
title={Touching a NeRF: leveraging neural radiance fields for tactile sensory data generation},
author={Zhong S, Albini A, Parker Jones O, Maiolino P & Posner H},
booktitle={7th Annual Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL 2023)},
pages={1618-1628},
year = "2023"
}
From Primates to Robots: Emerging Oscillatory Latent-Space Dynamics for Sensorimotor Control
Mitchell A, Parker Jones O, Yamada J, Merkt W, Havoutis I et al. (2023)
BibTeX
@inproceedings{fromprimatestor-2023/1,
title={From Primates to Robots: Emerging Oscillatory Latent-Space Dynamics for Sensorimotor Control},
author={Mitchell A, Parker Jones O, Yamada J, Merkt W, Havoutis I et al.},
booktitle={2023 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience},
year = "2023"
}
Reaching Through Latent Space: From Joint Statistics to Path Planning in Manipulation
Hung C-M, Zhong S, Goodwin W, Jones OP, Engelcke M et al. (2022)
BibTeX
@misc{reachingthrough-2022/10,
title={Reaching Through Latent Space: From Joint Statistics to Path Planning in
Manipulation},
author={Hung C-M, Zhong S, Goodwin W, Jones OP, Engelcke M et al.},
year = "2022"
}
