I am a professor of computer science in the Bio-Health Informatics Group in the School of Computer Science at the University of Manchester. I have a B.Sc. in biochemistry; an M.Sc. in biological Computation; and a D.Phil. in Computer Science: A blend of Biology and Computer Science, that I use within my main research area of Bioinformatics. I am also a member of the Information Management Group where I work with colleagues on both e-Science and description logics. I also have close affiliation with the Bioinformatics Groups from the Faculty of Life Sciences.

An article in The Biochemist magazine gives an overview of my academic life-history

A pottted biography is:

• 2013: Professor of computer science (Computer Science, Manchester);
• 2010: Reader in bio-health informatics (Computer Science, Manchester);
• 2006: Senior lecturer (Computer Science, Manchester);
• 2001: Lecturer (Computer Science, Manchester);
• 1997: Move to Manchester as postdoctoral research associate on TAMBIS project;
• 1993: RA on Maths project, university of York;
• 1996: D.Phil. computer science, University of York;
• 1991: M.Sc.biological computation, University of York;
• 1986: B.Cs. (Hons) Biochemistry, university of Bristol.

My research has followed a theme of the computer science associated with managing and using complex information in inter-disciplinary settings, from early research into presenting complex information in audio to blind people, through research into tools for data analysis in e-Science to my principle research area in biomedical semantics.

Within my biomedical ontology research I have led the ontology building and use within the school as one vertex of a virtuous triangle of ontology language fundamentals, tool development and ontology development and use. I have published the first papers on semantic similarity using bio-ontologies, the use of bio-ontologies to query multiple distributed information sources, to discover new proteins through classification, and to publish discovery of new biological facts in a high impact biology journal from the use of Semantic Web technologies.

This research into semantically describing and managing biomedical data has had a counterpart in my activity within e-Science research. I led the user activity of the Taverna Workflow Workbench (led by Carole Goble) in analysis of biomedical data. I was first author on the first paper to mention workflow within bioinformatics; the lead author on the first paper to use workflows to demonstrate an automation of biological analysis and a supervisor (with Andy Brass) of Paul Fisher, who developed novel methods for analyzing gene expression data that has led to insights into tolerance to trypanosomiasis in East African cattle.

I have supervised  five Ph.D. students to completion. I currently have three Ph.D. students. My students mainly work in the area of knowledge management within bioinformatics through the use of ontologies. I also run students on e-Science projects looking at "industrialising" data analysis within bioinformatics. Finally, I also have Ph.D. students working in the area of accessibility to electronic information by visually disabled computer users. I welcome enquiries from prospective Ph.D. students. I will be looking to take on new students from late 2008.