I have been interested in security in distributed systems for some time. The metaphor of Grid has been a useful way to find use cases for the relevant ideas. I've been making the connection between Trusted Computing and grid technologies, and looking for the architectural elements and design patterns necessary to make this a reality. These ideas have the potential to transform how we think about distributed systems and the security of information. I will spend a sabbatical year in 2008 exploring them further.
I am on my third 'life' in Oxford: I studied for my first degree here, before working as an industrial Software Engineer at Praxis in Bath. After a DPhil back in Oxford, I escaped to the other side of the world to be a Research Fellow at the Software Verification Research Centre in the University of Queensland. Eventually the excellent weather and relaxed way of life got the better of me, and so I returned to the UK, briefly as a lecturer in the University of Southampton, before entering my current post in 1999.
