Posted: 12th March 2018

The department’s Professor Tom Melham has been appointed to The Alan Turing Institute’s Board as the non-executive Director and Trustee for the University of Oxford.

The Alan Turing Institute is the national institute for data science, and its Board of Trustees is made up of independent members and nominated Trustees from each of its six founder partners (the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Warwick, UCL, and the EPSRC).

Tom, who is a Fellow of Balliol College, said: ‘The Alan Turing Institute has a significant part to play in shaping the UK’s agenda in data science and artificial intelligence research. It will be a pleasure to join the Board of Trustees and support the team to deliver their ambitions.’

Tom's research is focussed on mathematical methods for assuring quality and correctness of computer systems. For many years, he has worked closely with leading companies in the semiconductor industry on advanced tools and methods for microchip design validation. His research contributions include results in theorem proving, software architectures for formal reasoning tools, combined model checking and theorem proving, industrial-scale hardware verification, abstraction techniques, integrating formal verification into hardware design methodologies, hardware/software co-design and co-validation, validation of low-level firmware, and validation and analysis of System-on-Chip designs.

During 2012–15, Tom served as Associate Head of Oxford’s Mathematical, Physical, and Life Sciences Division. He served on the Strategic Advisory Network of the EPSRC from 2011-2017 and was a member of the EPSRC ICT Strategic Advisory Team. He was Chair for five years of the Computer Science Committee of the London Mathematical Society. Tom was also a member of the Technical Advisory Board for Jasper Design Automation from 2008 until its $170M acquisition in 2014 by Cadence Designs Systems. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2002 and a Fellow of the British Computer Society in 2015.

Howard Covington, Alan Turing Institute Chair, said: ‘Tom joins the Board at an exciting time, when we’re focused on consolidating our early research success and growing the Institute’s capability. I look forward to working with him, and all our Board Members, to ensure the Turing realises its ambitions in data science and artificial intelligence.’

Tom replaces Professor Peter Grindrod from the Mathematical Institute on the board of the Alan Turing Institute.

Further information about the Alan Turing Institute: https://www.turing.ac.uk