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Research develops autonomous marine robotic, sensing intelligence capabilities support marine science. Dedicated to fielding systems in real environments overcoming bottlenecks in the flow of information and data collection generating human insight. After graduating in ship science in 2002, Blair completed his PhD in underwater robotics at Southampton in 2006. Following his PhD, he spent two years at the URA laboratory at the Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), University of Tokyo, Japan, and continued research as a government-funded postdoctoral fellow before rejoining the University of Southampton in 2016. During his career, he has participated in more than 55 ocean research expeditions (30 as principal investigator) and spent 500 days at sea. He is also an associate editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering and IEEE Robotics Automation Letters, and was a guest editor for the Field Robotics Journal's Marine Robotics Special Issue. In 2014, he was awarded the Okamura Kenji prize for outstanding contributions to marine technology, particularly for his work in seafloor debris and radiation monitoring following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. He was also awarded 2nd place in the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE in 2019 as a founding member of Team KUROSHIO. Blair is the general chair for IEEE's flagship AUV2026 Symposium taking place in Southampton in September 2026.
University of Southampton • Southampton, ENG, GB
Conducting research in marine autonomy and teaching related fields.
University of Tokyo • Tokyo, JP
Researching underwater robotics in a government-funded position.