Who we are
Beautiful Places AI grew from the seeds of curiosity planted during Chanuki Seresinhe’s PhD work at the University of Warwick - Warwick Business School and The Alan Turing Institute. It was there that Chanuki delved into the fascinating relationship between the beauty of our surroundings and our wellbeing.
This exploration led Chanuki to meet her now co-founder, Stephen Law, and together they are embarking on a journey not only to quantify the elements that constitute a beautiful place but also to unravel how these aspects can contribute to social and economic wellbeing.
We are also privileged to have Gianni Giacomelli as our advisor, guiding us to realise the full potential of Beautiful Places AI.
Chanuki Seresinhe, PhD
Founder
Chanuki received a PhD in Data Science from the University of Warwick. Her research at the University of Warwick and the Alan Turing Institute involved understanding how the aesthetics of the environment influences human wellbeing. Her research has been featured in the press worldwide including the Economist, Wired, The Times, BBC, Spiegel Online, Guardian, Telegraph, Scientific American, Newsweek and MIT Technology Review. Commercially, Chanuki now works as the Chief Data and Technology Officer (CDTO) at Boon, having previously served as the Head of Data Science at Zoopla and Hometrack. Find out more about Chanuki at www.thoughtsymmetry.com
Stephen Law, PhD
Founder
Dr Stephen Law is a Lecturer, Assistant Professor, and Convenor, directing the MSc Social and Geographic Data Science at UCL, and a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute. His research interests spans GeoAI, geographic data science, computer vision, network science, urban economics, urban planning and urban design. He has completed a PhD in UCL studying the economic value of spatial networks in the housing market and has over 10 years’ international consultancy experience delivering urban design projects in the UK, Europe, Asia and the US, with multidisciplinary teams in both Aecom Hong Kong and Space Syntax in London.
Gianni Giacomelli
Advisor
Experienced innovation leader and C-suite of large information technology services and software (SAP, Genpact); affiliate to leading academic research institutions (Head of Innovation Design, MIT Collective Intelligence Lab), management consultant (BCG); and start-up executive. Now full-time focused on the sustainability (environmental and social) innovation agenda and the AI-enabled real-world transformation that will accompany it (Supermind.design).
Daniela Duca, PhD
Founder Associate
Dr Daniela Duca is a product leader with 15 years of experience driving innovation across diverse industries. She scaled ESG integration in portfolio investment at Bloomberg, built NLP and AI prototypes for EdTech companies, and led funding programs for research and infrastructure projects at the World Bank. Daniela holds 5 degrees, including a PhD in innovation management and an MBA. She is also a self-taught artist who has exhibited in three London galleries.
ROSS ANTHONY
TECH LEAD
Ross is a seasoned software engineer with two decades of experience in complex system integration, API development, and performance optimization. At Rocket Mortgage, he led key API developments for their flagship mortgage application. His expertise, honed through work with leading digital agencies in London and in the US, spans the full technology stack including frontend, backend, and dev-ops practices. Ross holds an MSc in Advanced Computing Technology from Birkbeck University. He excels in test-driven development and agile methodologies across various industries.