School of Computing News

The School of Computing is sad to report the sudden death of PhD student Daniel de Oliveira on 2 November 2016. After a long career in the computer industry in Brazil, France and the USA, working for Apple and the Brazilian Space Agency among others, Daniel realized a long-held ambition to study for a PhD at the University of Kent, where he was in his fourth year of study. Much of Daniel's work has been in the foundation and support of communities of practice in computing, helping profes...

Three papers from members of the School have been accepted to a leading conference. The Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages (POPL) is the leading venue for theoretical and experimental programming language and systems research. Radu Grigore and Mark Batty are both members of the Programming Languages and Systems Research Group in the School of Computing. The accepted papers are: – R. Grigore, Java Generics are Turing Complete – J. Wi...

Dr Luana Micallef’s PhD thesis has been commended as a runner-up in the 2016 BCS/CHPC Distinguished Dissertation award. Her thesis Visualizing Set Relations and Cardinalities Using Venn and Euler Diagrams was supervised by Dr Peter Rodgers. Peter, who is also Director of Research in the School of Computing, said: ‘We are delighted that Luana's excellent research in this area has been recognised. Her efforts have...

Staff and students at the School of Computing are looking forward to welcoming visitors to a series of Open Days on Saturday 8 and 22 October in Canterbury and Saturday 15 October in Medway. At the Open Day on 22 October the School will be open from 9.00-15.00 and you can talk to staff, undergraduate and postgraduate students to find out more about studying computer science at the University of Kent. Timings: 09.30-13.30 – Dem...

Dr Anna Jordanous, lecturer in the School of Computing, worked with language expert Dr Bill Keller (University of Sussex) on how to define the language people use when talking about creativity, known in the field as computational creativity. With that knowledge it becomes possible to make computer programs use this language too. Dr Jordanous and Dr Keller looked at what people say when they talk about "what is creativity" in academic discussio...

Congratulations to four members of academic staff who have been promoted in the recent round of academic promotions which took effect on 1 October 2016. Dr Mark Batty and Dr Matteo Migliavacca have been promoted to senior lecturer and Dr Eerke Boiten and Dr Scott Owens have been promoted to reader. Head of School, Professor Frank Wang, said: ‘I am extremely happy for these colleagues and they fully deserve this recognition. Hopefully their pr...

Drs Carlos Perez Delgado and Dominic Orchard have joined the University of Kent as a lecturers in the School of Computing. Dr Carlos Perez Delgado Carlos is a member of the Security Research Group and the Future Computing Research Group and has joined the School from Singapore University of Technology and Design where he was  Senior Research Fellow conducting and disseminating scientific research in the areas of quantum information and quantum computing. He has an und...

Over 100 students have once again embarked on industry placements with the support of the team in the School of Computing. Placement Officers Sian Robson and Katie Van Sanden announced that 113 students will be on placement for the 2016/17 academic year. This includes nine Master's students, 24 undergraduates studying at Medway and 80 undergraduate students based at the Canterbury campus. Katie said: 'The students are based in 67 companies across 7...

  Steve Baker was among the first cohorts of Computing students in the 1970s. Computers have come a long way since then, and so has his career.   What made you decide to study at Kent? Back in the mid-1970’s, it wasn’t clear how important computers were going to become.  I took a single class on FORTRAN programming in school and that convinced me that some kind of a career with computers...

This article by Professor Ian McLoughlin was first published in The Conversation. It's one of the most famous quotes of all time. "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," were the first words NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong uttered when he set foot on the moon at 02.56 GMT on July 21 1969. Or were they? Armstrong himself has always insisted he said "one small step fo...