This is the informal page, for those who are really desperate to know more (or who are not getting out enough, I suppose!).
I was born in England, but raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I went to school at Methodist College Belfast, a historic, large and well-regarded grammar school with a strong sporting tradition (hence my interest in Rugby ... watching rather than participating!). I stayed in Belfast to attend Queens University majoring in Computer Science. Graduating with First Class Hons, I left Northern Ireland to move to my first job as a Software Engineer at Plessey Defense Systems Ltd in Christchurch, Dorset. Initially I worked on the Ptarmigan Project in the Systems Design team, but rapidly moved on to work in the Future Systems and Advanced Techniques group in which I worked on various projects involved with moving Ada and OOD techniques into the company.
I left Plessey Defense Systems after a relatively short time to join the University of the West of England as a Lecturer. Initially I taught first year programming, a Software Design course for the HND Computer Studies award and Software Engineering on the MSc IT award. Although I continued to teach Software Engineering for six years at MSc level, my undergraduate teaching gradually changed to reflect my interests in Concurrent and Parallel Processing and Object Oriented methods. I continued to pursue research interests in Agent-based computing, Artifical Life, and Genetics Based Machine Learning and eventually managed to create sufficient time to complete my Ph.D. with Queens University Belfast, bring in funding for a number of projects and publish ... quite a feat in one of the "new Universities", and enabled by some far-sighted thinking on the part of the then Dean of Faculty, Prof. Ken Jukes. By the time I left UWE in December 2001 I was a Principal Lecturer and was a member of Academic Board of the University.
I joined the University of Bath in January 2002 to take on the role of Director of Undergraduate Studies within the Department of Computer Science. Although I had held an equivalent role in UWE from 1993 to 1999, I had made up my mind earlier in 2001 to seek a department with a greater research emphasis so that I could concentrate more on research. The University of Bath was a top-ten UK University, and the offer of a job here seemed ideal timing.
I left the University of Bath in September 2007 to become Pastor of Street Baptist Church.
I have a wonderful wife (married in 1989) and four fantastic children (born 1990, 1992, 1994 and 1996 ... boy, girl, girl, boy respectively). I lived in the beautiful City of Bath from 1989 to 2007. My parents are retired, and moved from Belfast to Clevedon (about 30 miles from Bath). My brothers and sister are scattered around England. My wife is from Swansea, and her family are mainly located in South Wales.
I am a believing Christian, and was an active member of Widcombe Baptist Church in Bath where I had oversight of the youth work of the church and led the youth group for 11 to 14 year olds, among many other responsibilities over the years. My faith shapes every aspect of my life, as it should.
I would love to be keen on sport, but don't have the time ... I cycled to and from the University and do some jogging from time to time. I do a fair bit of walking with family and friends. I love watching Rugby, and follow the progress of Bath Rugby carefully ... I used to manage to get to three or four matches a year, and still try to watch as many others on TV as possible. In the Six Nations Championship I have an interesting division of loyalty between England (the land of my birth and current residence) and Ireland (the land of my upbringing and cultural influence). I also have to be careful not to cheer too much when Wales lose, or my wife and her family get a bit upset!