A YOUNG robotics expert is heading to the USA after being awarded an $80,000 scholarship by Google.

Former Brentwood School pupil Miles Aubert, 20, recently graduated from Reading University with a first in Robotics, and after previously completing prestigious Google scholarship, will go to Duke University in North Carolina to do a PhD and work as a research assistant at the Humans and Autonomy Laboratory.

The scholarship is being funded jointly by the internet giants and the university.

Miles, who lives in Hockley, starts next month and during the next seven years he will travel all over the world visiting other universities, research institutes, companies and the Google headquarters in California.

Miles attended Brentwood School from 2004 to 2011, and also suffers from dyspraxia and dyslexia. In 2013, he beat 2,000 other applicants to win the Google Europe Scholarship for students with disabilities.

As part of his PhD, he will research the brain and boredom, blood oxygenation, and re-engaging a person’s attention in driverless cars.

Miles said: “We monitor activity in a person’s brain and when they are bored re-engage them to improve reaction times.

“The research can be used in other applications. We will study people who are not doing anything and then have to react very quickly in a high pressure situation.”

Of his time at Brentwood School, Miles added: “The school gave me confidence and instilled a sense of school pride. I was proud to be at Brentwood. It was an experience very, very few schools can give you in life.”