I have been an academic at the University of Otago Department of Computer Science since 2011. In 2023 we became the School of Computing. I was previously a postdoc at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory (now the Department of Computer Science and Technology), from where I received my PhD.

I have many research interests including in highly technical areas such as distributed systems, cloud computing, and middleware: particularly regarding event-based systems and security. I am also interested in public policy, particularly regarding artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, seeking to effect development of safe, accountable technologies. I helped establish the University's Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Public Policy (CAIPP) and remain a member of its steering committee.

For the official view, I have a School of Computing staff page. More information about my research background and trajectory is available within my biographical sketch.

PhD positions that I'm keen to fill!

I am currently seeking to start a number of specific PhD projects, including some in collaboration with other members of the School. Please get in contact with me if you are keen to undertake PhD work, meet the standard of Otago PhD Scholarships, and have research interest that overlap the topics below.

• Comparative performance analysis and optimisation of computer vision code across heterogeneous computing platforms (including multicore, GPU, commodity cloud, dedicated HPC infrastructure, FPGA, etc.).
• Cloud security research (e.g. Information Flow Control in Distributed Event Based Systems).
• Task scheduling analysis, simulation and measurement for massively parallel computing architectures with programmable CPU interconnects.
• Capability-based security.

Note that I am definitely open-minded regarding other topics that overlap my past research, and indeed numerous areas not yet represented in my past research (e.g., electronic analysis of temperament in music performance).

Postgraduate students past and present

I have had the honour of co-supervising many amazing postgraduate students over my years at the University of Otago. Indeed my students have won awards locally, nationally and internationally (Pradeesh won the University's three minute thesis competition (3MT) in 2021, and also earned an Outstanding Paper award at the top-ranked COLING 2022 conference.)

Teaching

I thoroughly enjoy undergraduate and postgraduate (well, any form of) teaching. I have taught a wide range of courses at the University of Otago, and am keen to support my School however I best can. I actively seek ways to bring new technology into my lectures and labs. I share my teaching materials and supporting software under open source licenses.

Conference participation

I participate in a number of international conference series regularly, including:

• Middleware—ACM International Middleware Conference
• DEBS—ACM International Conference on Distributed and Event-based Systems
• IC2E—the IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering

Within New Zealand, I have participated in:

• NZeR—eResearch New Zealand
• IVCNZ—Image and Vision Computing New Zealand

More wide-ranging potential research interests

I have perilously broad research and project interests, although they are mostly "systems" in flavour. To provide a non-exhaustive idea of this breadth, and as a starting point for discussion, here are some projects I have been involved with:

• Security in distributed event-based systems, with a particular focus on the use of event-based systems in healthcare applications. This links to security in the Cloud.
• Distributed infrastructure for collaborative research. This has led me to do some investigation of the security of the iRODS distributed storage middleware.
• Green computing, leading into particular interests in virtualisation.
• Network management and measurement tools.
• High dimensional indexing methods for database systems.
• Stream compression of "interesting" data types.
• Declarative and functional programming or systems projects.
• Building monitoring and visualisation.
• Distributed file systems.
• Esoteric website content management systems.
• Efficient IP traffic monitoring.
• Electronic voting systems.

University service

Soon after I arrived at the University of Otago, I became involved in eResearch advocacy and support. On one hand eResearch supports researchers accessing specialised technology with which to complete their research. On the other, eResearch is about upskilling all researchers with respect to digital tools and techniques. I have chaired the University of Otago eResearch Advisory Group (eRAG) since 2012: in recent years we have run an eResearch @ Otago event annually, to provide updates and information relevant to researchers within the University. Since 2022, I have served on the New Zealand eScience Infrastructure board of directors.

In other areas of IT service for the University of Otago, I have served on the University's IT Governance Board, chair the IT Portfolio Change Advisory Board (part of the University's project management approach—3PM), and have served on numerous Project Steering Committees, e.g., regarding cybersecurity, the digital workspaces project, identity management. I am a member of the Advanced Technology Reference Group, that is seeking to determine how best the University can adopt artificial intelligence while mitigating the risks associated with its use.

As a general disclaimer, my self-managed webpages are typically a work in progress that lags reality (slightly ironic given that I've done past work in website content management systems that should make writing and maintaining such content easy!).