Members of the Computer Science Department (as of February 2003)

With updates from 2004 in Blue!


Academic Staff


Alwyn Barry (Senior Lecturer) BSc, PhD (Queens University Belfast). PhD in Machine Learning. Current research interests include Learning Classifier Systems, Evolutionary Computation, Machine Learning (including the application of Machine Learning within mobile robotics), Data Mining, and Agent-based Parallel Languages. Previous appointments: Software Engineer, Plessey Defence Systems (1987-1988); Senior Lecturer, UWE Bristol (1988-1999); Principal Lecturer, UWE Bristol (1988-2001); Consultancy and training for (e.g.) Airbus, BAe Space Systems, Matra-BAe Dynamics, Rolls-Royce, Westinghouse Signals, European Space Agency, Science Systems. Dr Barry's research interests are primarily in the area of Machine Learning, particularly implemented by Evolutionary Computation. He is also interested in Biologically-inspired computing, and is looking at predatory behaviours in higher mammals to identify new ways of controlling behaviours in cooperative agents.


Russell Bradford (Lecturer) MA (Cantab), PhD (Bath) in Computer Algebra. Research interests include computer algebra; cryptography; design and implementation of object-oriented languages; simulation and emulation of networks; the mechanisation of various abstract nonsenses. Outside interests include karate, going to festivals and being generally distracted.


Joanna Bryson (Lecturer) BA (Chicago; Behavioural Science), MSc (Edinburgh; Artificial Intelligence) MPhil (Edinburgh; Psychology) PhD (MIT; Computer Science). Primary research interest: Using Artificial Intelligence to understand Natural Intelligence.  Agent-based modelling of animal societies, modular models of individual intelligence, AI development methodologies, action selection and reactive planning, intelligent systems (e.g. environments, rooms, accompanists, tutors), AI & Society.  Hobbies are political science, neuroscience and music.  Trying to learn to paint. Actually, I'm still interested in all the same things!


James Davenport (Hebron and Medlock Professor of Information Technology) MA (Cantab), PhD (Cantab), FIMA, MBCS. Research interests include computer algebra, especially symbolic integration, equation solving, electronic mathematical publishing and "mathematics on the Web", robot motion planning and cryptography, especially cracking US public-key cryptosystems. He has also published in complexity theory, type theory and in networking. Outside interests include examining French PhDs.


Marina De Vos (Lecturer) graduated from Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels, Belgium), PhD (Brussels, Belgium). Research in logic programming, game theory and agents. Research interests: knowledge representation, answer set programming and its applications, artificial intelligence, theoretical computer science, the use of logic in computer science.


John ffitch (Professor of Software Engineering) MA, PhD (Cantab), FRAS. Research interests include computer algebra, LISP implementation, event simulation, MIMD, parallel computation, computational linguistics, computer music and astronomy. Part-time director of Codemist, creators of optimising compilers and LISP and algebra systems. Outside interests include systems programming, cycling, listening to Xenakis and trying to reconcile sleep with clear telescope nights.


Carsten Fuhrmann PhD in theoretical computer science (Edinburgh).  Research interests: semantics of programming languages, program calculi, category theory, logics.


Peter Hall (Lecturer) BSc (Physics-with-Astrophysics, Leeds, 1983), MSc (Computer Graphics, Middlesex, 1989), PhD (Scientific Visualisation, Sheffield, 1992). Research interests in graphics and medical imaging.


Hilary Johnson (Senior Lecturer) BSc (Psychology and Statistics, Salford), PhD (Cognitive Psychology, Birmingham). Research interests in HCI, Interactive System Design and CSCW. Specific interests in HCI include: theory-based approaches to task analysis and modelling (TKS); the role of task analysis in interactive system design; theories and methods for evaluating user interfaces; the development of predictive principles for designing and evaluating UI designs; modelling and supporting collaborative activities.


Peter Johnson (Professor of Computing Science and Head of Department), BSc (Psychology and Statistics, Salford, 1978), PhD (Cognitive Psychology, Warwick, 1981). My research interests are largely in Human Computer Interaction and how system design and evaluation can proceed from a sound understanding of interaction. I have particular interests in technologies of collaboration, interaction, and mobile computing and the design and evolution of complex, safe/error tolerant systems in domains such as healthcare, transport, process planning and control. I also have interests in HCI and entertainment/leisure.


Eamonn O'Neill (Lecturer) BA (Open), MSc (Oxon), PhD (Lond). Member of the Association for Computing Machinery and the ACM SIGCHI Special Interest Group in Human Computer Interaction. Executive committee member and WWW Resources Coordinator for the Human-Computer Interaction Specialist Group of the British Computer Society. My current main research interests are in collaborative activities, the notions of participation spaces, and the development of advanced forms of mobile and ubiquitous computing. In particular, I am engaged in researching these issues in healthcare settings.


Derek Paddon (Lecturer) BSc (University of Wales), MSc (Reading), PhD (University of Wales). Founded the computer graphics research group at Bristol University in 1985, moved to Bath in 1999. Research interests in high performance computer graphics, virtual environments, photorealisation in computer graphics, physical modelling for computer animation using 6-dimensional elasticity. Parallel computing for high-performance simulations. Software engineering of object-oriented paradigms.


Julian Padget (Senior Lecturer), BSc (Leeds), PhD (Bath). Research interests: agents, distributed systems, electronic commerce, artificial intelligence, programming language design and implementation, mobile programming, computer music.


David Pym (Professor of Logic & Computation), M.A. (Cantab), Ph.D. (Edin), C.Math, FIMA. Research in mathematical logic, including categorical logic, model theory, proof theory, type theory; and theoretical computer science, including semantics of programming languages, program logics and resource modelling. Particular interests in the interaction between substructural logics and the semantics of computation. Also active in logic programming and theorem proving. Developing interests in the methodology and philosophy of computer science, and in the application of mathematical resource modelling to interactive systems.


Dan Richardson (Senior Lecturer), BSc (San Francisco), PhD (Bristol). Has taught at Bristol University and several places in the USA and also done research at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen. Trained as a logician, his research interests cover the boundaries between pure mathematics and computing, with a particular interest in computational analysis and effective methods in real algebraic geometry, with applications to computer aided design. Outside interests include writing short stories.


Nicolai Vorobjov (Reader) Graduated from St Petersburg (Leningrad) State University in 1979. PhD in Mathematics from St Petersburg State University in 1984. Held research and teaching positions at St Petersburg State University, Mathematical Steklov Institute (Russia), Cornell University and Pennsylvania State University (USA). Research interests are in Computer Algebra (in particular, in computational algebraic geometry) and other areas of Theoretical Computer Science.


Leon Watts  (Lecturer) Most people, when they do anything at all, act in concert with others. Since computers intervene in just about everything people in the industrialized world now do, it is of vital importance to understand how collaboration takes place through technology. So my research focuses on interactive systems that are designed to foster effective collaboration between people, primarily in terms of the human communication processes that must be supported through such technologies. My investigations have focused on the use of video and text as collaborative media, and also on ubiquitous or pervasive computing as it might be realized in collaborative settings. This interest extends to mechanisms for providing awareness of sensor and effector technologies - as data capture and presentation mechanisms - and how they might map onto individuals' mutual expectations and actions. The research fields to which my work contributes are HCI, CMC and CSCW.


Claire Willis (Senior Lecturer), BSc (University College, London), PhD (Bristol). MSc in Computer Science Course Tutor. Research interests: software reuse, safety-critical software, formal specification, inheritance and multiple inheritance in object-oriented languages, virtual environments and photorealism in computer graphics.


Phil Willis (Professor of Computing) BSc (Sussex), MSc (Essex), DPhil (Sussex). Research interests in colour graphics, virtual reality, computer animation, especially 2D animation, operating systems and algorithms to support graphics film images.  Topics in virtual reality, in particular making VR mechanics work and non hierarchical modelling. Might also be interested in some graphics things in 2d and 3d visualisation.