Computer Science News
Promotions for two academic colleagues

We are delighted to report that Dr Greg Watson and Dr Lin Gui have been promoted to, respectively, Senior Teaching Fellow and Senior Research Fellow, effective from 1 August 2021. Quoting from their recommendations,
What particularly stands out ... is the virtuous circle of (1) Dr Watson鈥檚 continual striving for advancing his teaching expertise, evidenced by the extensive courses he has both attended and contributed to, (2) the strong two-way links between Dr Watson鈥檚 development and his teaching practice (and that of his peers), evidenced by the various different changes and improvements that he introduced in the classroom based on his scholarly educational investigations, and (3) the consistent very positive feedback from different groups of students as well as colleagues.
and
Dr Lin Gui is one of the most successful postdoctoral researchers in the recent history of the Department, and is continuing his research career with us after a prestigious two-year Marie Curie fellowship. He has been building a solid and high-flying international reputation, underpinned by an impressive trajectory of high-quality publications. Dr Gui鈥檚 initiative and emerging independence are in particular reflected in his contributions to substantial successful funding proposals.
it remains to say many congratulations!
Graham Cormode named 2020 ACM Fellow
Prof. Graham Cormode of the Department of Computer Science has been named among the 2020 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellows, for contributions to computer science. The ACM is the world's leading learned society for computer science. Prof. Cormode is recognised for his contributions to data summarisation and privacy enabling data management and analysis. His work on data streams and sketching has been widely implemented in many high tech companies and organisations.
EPSRC funding success for Dr. Ramanujan Sridharan
We are delighted to report that from the Theory and Foundations (FoCS) research theme at the Computer Science Department has received a prestigious EPSRC New Investigator Award. The approximately 拢264K project titled "New frontiers in Parameterizing Away From Triviality鈥 aims to develop novel notions of graph edit distance and investigate their connections to efficient solvability of computationally hard problems.the proposal identifies research questions that are novel, has the potential to have a broader impact both within and outside academia and it is an exciting project that will break new ground.
Seven new academic and teaching staff







By the start of the Autumn Term, the department will boast seven new staff who have joined us in 2020: Associate Professor , Assistant Professor Dr Weiren Yu, Senior Teaching Fellow Dr Andrew Hague, Teaching Fellows Dr Greg Watson, Dr Rossella Suma and Richard Kirk, and Research and Teaching Fellow Dr Matthew Bradbury.
Coming from Southampton, Aston and 91福利 universities, our new colleagues bring a wealth of teaching and research excellence, with expertise in areas including artificial intelligence, agent-based systems, data mining, information retrieval, educational technologies, image processing, high-performance computing, and cyber security.
Promotion to Associate Professor
A further piece of excellent news: Dr Paolo Turrini has been promoted to Associate Professor, effective from 1 September 2020. Many congratulations to Paolo, whose recommendation says:
Dr鈥疶urrini has maintained an internationally recognised publication trajectory, with papers appearing in highly-ranked journals and conferences. He has also grown his research group to 4 PhD students currently, and developed fruitful research collaborations with several academics in the department. 鈥 Dr鈥疶urrini has contributed to designing two 4th-year/MSc modules. He has been attentive to his teaching to an exemplary degree, resulting in consistently positive feedback from students...
Promotion to Senior Teaching Fellow
We are very happy to report that Dr Andrew Hague has been promoted to Senior Teaching Fellow, effective from 1 July 2020. Quoting from his recommendation,
Dr Hague... has built on his successful experiences of design and delivery of teaching in 91福利 Foundation Studies, already demonstrating a high standard in module development as well as delivery of lectures, seminars and laboratories in Computer Science. Both feedback from students and references from colleagues testify to his excellence and initiative. 鈥 Dr Hague is recognised within a valuable network of contacts on campus, in the computer games industry, and other educational and community organisations, where he is known for his capacity for impactful innovation in the wide domain of educational technology. Dr Hague has also already proved himself in several successful outreach initiatives and events.
it remains to say many congratulations!
Athena SWAN Bronze Award for the Department
We are very happy to report that the Department has won a Bronze Award from the . This is a key Equality Charter of , and it recognises advancement of gender equality: representation, progression and success for all. Commenting on the award, the University's Provost, Professor Christine Ennew, said:
This is excellent news for Computer Science and the wider 91福利 community. I would like to offer my congratulations to everyone in the Department for the significant progress that has been made on gender equality in recent years, and I wish them every success in implementing their Action Plan for this area in the coming years.
We are especially grateful to the Self-Assessment Team, and all students and staff who contributed to the questionnaire, the analysis and the consultation. This Bronze Award will be held by the Department until at least November 2023.