Fellow Detail

My research interests are mainly in computer algebra, also with an interest in those parts of cryptography which use higher algebraic constructs. In the past I have worked on trying to introduce higher-order types into computer algebra though the Axiom project. That particular project largely failed for commercial reasons (not a big enough market for IBM, and the software was too complicated for non-mathematicians) but these ideas have been taken up elsewhere in many parts of the computer algebra community.

I currently use (both for research and teaching) the Maple system, and have a close connection with Maplesoft: some of our software from an ongoing EPSRC-funded project is in Maple 17 and successors, and formed the basis for a REF2014 Impact Case Study. Getting it into Maple, as developers rather than just "here's the code, you install it" taught us quite a lot about modern commercial software engineering.

I am responsible for the University of Bath's High Performance Computing system (just refreshed, 60 Tflops), and the software on it, so I encounter a wide range of software: both commercial and public domain, both easily portable and a nightmare (where the two dimensions are almost orthogonal!). I am also Director of Studies for the EPSRC-funded Doctoral TaughtCourse Centre in High Performance Computing (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/hpc-sc/) and therefore have an interest in teaching research students from across the UK and a wide range of disciplines in good software habits, especially in the Autumn Academy aimed at starting research students.

I teach Programming to first-year mathematics students (331 this year), and therefore am responsible for the first steps in program design (using MatLab). I endeavour to talk about larger computing projects, but fear this falls largely on deaf ears.