I received a first class honours degree in Mathematics from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1980. Between 1980 and 1982 I worked as a Systems Analyst and Computer Programmer for the Sage Group. I wrote the initial versions of many of Sage's well known commercial programs including the first Sage Payroll, Time Recording and Job Costing packages.

I received a Ph.D. degree in Theoretical Physics in 1985 from the University of Durham for research work on Composite models of Weak Gauge Bosons.

For 2 years I worked as a Consultant for Mari Advanced Microelectronics Ltd. I was the Project Leader of the Esprit projects Delta-4 and Concordia and a member of Delta-4 Project Technical Design Board. Delta-4 and Concordia were projects concerned with the design and development of fault tolerant distributed computing systems. I joined the Computing Science Departement at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne as a lecturer in 1987. I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2002. My research interests lie in the area of fault tolerant distributed systems.