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
The 2026 PNPL Competition: Word Classification and Efficient Cross-Subject Generalisation in LibriBrain100
Mantegna F, Elvers G, Jayalath D, Landau G, Kim T et al. (2026)
BibTeX
@misc{thepnplcompetit-2026/9,
title={The 2026 PNPL Competition: Word Classification and Efficient Cross-Subject Generalisation in LibriBrain100},
author={Mantegna F, Elvers G, Jayalath D, Landau G, Kim T et al.},
year = "2026"
}
A Common Measure of Communication for Speech Brain-Computer Interfaces
Jayalath D, Ballyk B & Jones OP (2026)
BibTeX
@misc{acommonmeasureo-2026/9,
title={A Common Measure of Communication for Speech Brain-Computer Interfaces},
author={Jayalath D, Ballyk B & Jones OP},
year = "2026"
}
LibriBrain100: One Hundred Hours of Broad and Deep MEG Data for Neural Speech Decoding at Scale
Mantegna F, Jayalath D, Elvers G, Kim T, Ballyk B et al. (2026)
BibTeX
@misc{libribrainonehu-2026/8,
title={LibriBrain100: One Hundred Hours of Broad and Deep MEG Data for Neural Speech Decoding at Scale},
author={Mantegna F, Jayalath D, Elvers G, Kim T, Ballyk B et al.},
year = "2026"
}
Acoustic properties of utterance-initial glottal stop in Hawaiian
Roon KD, Davidson L & Parker Jones O (2026), 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 O},
journal={Journal of the Acoustical Society of America},
volume={159},
pages={4038-4055},
publisher={Acoustical Society of America},
year = "2026"
}
Modelling Discrete States and Long-Term Dynamics in Functional Brain Networks
Cho S, Huang R, Gohil C, Jones OP & Woolrich MW (2026), Imaging Neuroscience
BibTeX
@article{modellingdiscre-2026/4,
title={Modelling Discrete States and Long-Term Dynamics in Functional Brain Networks},
author={Cho S, Huang R, Gohil C, Jones OP & Woolrich MW},
journal={Imaging Neuroscience},
publisher={MIT Press},
year = "2026"
}
MEG-XL: Data-Efficient Brain-to-Text via Long-Context Pre-Training
Jayalath D & Jones OP (2026)
BibTeX
@misc{megxldataeffici-2026/2,
title={MEG-XL: Data-Efficient Brain-to-Text via Long-Context Pre-Training},
author={Jayalath D & Jones OP},
year = "2026"
}
MEGnifying Emotion: Sentiment Analysis from Annotated Brain Data
Liu B & Jones OP (2026)
BibTeX
@misc{megnifyingemoti-2026/1,
title={MEGnifying Emotion: Sentiment Analysis from Annotated Brain Data},
author={Liu B & Jones OP},
year = "2026"
}
Separating the forest from the palm trees: Individual variation in a presurgical language mapping task
Voets NL, Parker Jones O, Seghier ML & Plaha P (2026), NeuroImage Clinical, 49, 103943
BibTeX
@article{separatingthefo-2026/,
title={Separating the forest from the palm trees: Individual variation in a presurgical language mapping task},
author={Voets NL, Parker Jones O, Seghier ML & Plaha P},
journal={NeuroImage Clinical},
volume={49},
pages={103943},
publisher={Elsevier},
year = "2026"
}
MEG-GPT: a transformer-based foundation model for magnetoencephalography data
Huang R, Cho S, Gohil C, Parker Jones O & Woolrich M (2025)
BibTeX
@misc{meggptatransfor-2025/10,
title={MEG-GPT: a transformer-based foundation model for magnetoencephalography data},
author={Huang R, Cho S, Gohil C, Parker Jones O & Woolrich M},
year = "2025"
}
LibriBrain: Over 50 Hours of Within-Subject MEG to Improve Speech Decoding Methods at Scale
Özdogan M, Landau G, Elvers G, Jayalath D, Somaiya P et al. (2025)
BibTeX
@misc{libribrainoverh-2025/6,
title={LibriBrain: Over 50 Hours of Within-Subject MEG to Improve Speech Decoding Methods at Scale},
author={Özdogan M, Landau G, Elvers G, Jayalath D, Somaiya P et al.},
year = "2025"
}
The 2025 PNPL Competition: Speech Detection and Phoneme Classification in the LibriBrain Dataset
Landau G, Özdogan M, Elvers G, Mantegna F, Somaiya P et al. (2025)
BibTeX
@misc{thepnplcompetit-2025/6,
title={The 2025 PNPL Competition: Speech Detection and Phoneme Classification in the LibriBrain Dataset},
author={Landau G, Özdogan M, Elvers G, Mantegna F, Somaiya P et al.},
year = "2025"
}
Unlocking Non-Invasive Brain-to-Text
Jayalath D, Landau G & Jones OP (2025)
BibTeX
@misc{unlockingnoninv-2025/5,
title={Unlocking Non-Invasive Brain-to-Text},
author={Jayalath D, Landau G & Jones OP},
year = "2025"
}
Consensus recommendations for clinical functional MRI applied to language mapping
Voets NL, Ashtari M, Beckmann CF, Benjamin CF, Benzinger T et al. (2025), Aperture Neuro, 5
BibTeX
@article{consensusrecomm-2025/1,
title={Consensus recommendations for clinical functional MRI applied to language mapping},
author={Voets NL, Ashtari M, Beckmann CF, Benjamin CF, Benzinger T et al.},
journal={Aperture Neuro},
volume={5},
publisher={Organization for Human Brain Mapping},
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, 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},
volume={5},
pages={795-817},
publisher={Massachusetts Institute of Technology 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"
}
