Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge

The Department of Computer Science and Technology, formerly the Computer Laboratory, is the computer science department of the University of Cambridge. As of 2023 it employed 56 faculty members, 45 support staff, 105 research staff, and about 205 research students.[1] The current Head of Department is Professor Ann Copestake.

Department of Computer Science and Technology
The Computer Laboratory has been housed in the William Gates Building in West Cambridge since August 2001.
Former names
Computer Laboratory
Mathematical Laboratory
Established14 May 1937 (14 May 1937)
Head of DepartmentProfessor Ann Copestake
Academic staff
35
Administrative staff
25
Postgraduates155
Location
William Gates Building, Cambridge
,
United Kingdom

52.211°N 0.092°E / 52.211; 0.092
Websitewww.cst.cam.ac.uk

History

The department was founded as the Mathematical Laboratory under the leadership of John Lennard-Jones on 14 May 1937, though it did not get properly established until after World War II. The new laboratory was housed in the North Wing of the former Anatomy School, on the New Museums Site. Upon its foundation, it was intended "to provide a computing service for general use, and to be a centre for the development of computational techniques in the University". The Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science was the world's first postgraduate taught course in computing, starting in 1953.

In October 1946, work began under Maurice Wilkes on EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator), which subsequently became the world's first fully operational and practical stored program computer when it ran its first program on 6 May 1949. It inspired the world's first business computer, LEO. It was replaced by EDSAC 2, the first microcoded and bitsliced computer, in 1958.

In 1961, David Hartley developed Autocode, one of the first high-level programming languages, for EDSAC 2. Also in that year, proposals for Titan, based on the Ferranti Atlas machine, were developed. Titan became fully operational in 1964 and EDSAC 2 was retired the following year. In 1967, a full ('24/7') multi-user time-shared service for up to 64 users was inaugurated on Titan.

In 1970, the Mathematical Laboratory was renamed the Computer Laboratory, with separate departments for Teaching and Research and the Computing Service, providing computing services to the university and its colleges. The two did not fully separate until 2001, when the Computer Laboratory moved out to the new William Gates building in West Cambridge, off Madingley Road, leaving behind an independent Computing Service.

In 2002, the Computer Laboratory launched the Cambridge Computer Lab Ring, a graduate society named after the Cambridge Ring network.

Current

On 30 June 2017, the Cambridge University Reporter announced that the Computer Laboratory would change its name to the Department of Computer Science and Technology from 1 October 2017, to reflect the broadened scope of its purpose and activities.[2]

The department currently offers a 3-year undergraduate course and a 1-year masters course (with a large selection of specialised courses in various research areas). Recent research has focused on virtualisation, security, usability, formal verification, formal semantics of programming languages, computer architecture, natural language processing, mobile computing, wireless networking, biometric identification, robotics, routing, positioning systems and sustainability ("Computing for the future of the planet"). Members have been involved in the creation of many successful UK IT companies such as Acorn, ARM, nCipher and XenSource.

Staff

Professors

As of 2016, the lab employed 19 professors. Notable ones include:

  1. Ross J. Anderson,[3] Professor of Security Engineering
  2. Alan F. Blackwell, Professor of Interdisciplinary Design
  3. Ann Copestake,[4] Professor of Computational Linguistics
  4. Jon Crowcroft, Marconi Professor of Communications Systems
  5. John Daugman, Professor of Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  6. Andy Hopper,[5] Professor of Computer Technology
  7. Neil Lawrence, Deepmind Professor of machine learning
  8. Cecilia Mascolo, Professor of Mobile Systems
  9. Alan Mycroft, Professor of Computing
  10. Lawrence Paulson, Professor of Computational Logic
  11. Peter Robinson, Professor of Computer Technology

Other notable staff include Sue Sentance, Robert Watson, Markus Kuhn.

Former staff

Former staff include:

Heads of the Computer Laboratory

The lab has been led by:

Achievements and innovations

Members have made impact in computers, Turing machines, microprogramming, subroutines, computer networks, mobile protocols, security, programming languages, kernels, OS, security, virtualisation, location badge systems, etc. Below is a list.

Impact on business enterprise

A number of companies have been founded by staff and graduates. Their names were featured in the new entrance in 2012.[13] Some cited examples of successful companies are ARM, Autonomy, Aveva, CSR and Domino. One common factor they share is that key staff or founder members are "drenched in university training and research".[14] The Cambridge Computer Lab Ring was praised for its "tireless work" by Andy Hopper in 2012, at its tenth anniversary dinner.[15]

Notable alumni (industries)

References
  1. "'People - Department of Computer Science'". University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 29 December 2022.
  2. "Notices by the General Board – Cambridge University Reporter 6473: Renaming of the Computer Laboratory". University of Cambridge. p. 753. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
  3. "ANDERSON, Prof. Ross John". Who's Who. Vol. 2014 (online edition via Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. Ann Copestake publications indexed by Google Scholar
  5. "HOPPER, Prof. Andrew". Who's Who. Vol. 2015 (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  6. Hoffmann, L. (2010). "Robin Milner: the elegant pragmatist". Communications of the ACM. 53 (6): 20. doi:10.1145/1743546.1743556.
  7. Hoare, T.; Wilkes, M. V. (2004). "Roger Michael Needham CBE FREng. 9 February 1935 – 1 March 2003: Elected F.R.S. 1985". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 50: 183. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2004.0014. S2CID 58340004.
  8. Martin Richards at DBLP Bibliography Server
  9. Tait, J. I. (2007). "Karen Spärck Jones". Computational Linguistics. 33 (3): 289–291. doi:10.1162/coli.2007.33.3.289. S2CID 219302075.
  10. Campbell-Kelly, M. (2006). "David John Wheeler. 9 February 1927 -- 13 December 2004: Elected FRS 1981". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 52: 437. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2006.0030.
  11. Campbell-Kelly, M. (2014). "Sir Maurice Vincent Wilkes 26 June 1913 -- 29 November 2010". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 60: 433–454. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2013.0020.
  12. url="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/dtg/attarchive/ab.html Archived 27 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine"
  13. Quested, Tony (24 February 2012). "Cambridge technology cluster thriving thanks to university dynamism". Business Weekly. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
  14. Vargas, Lautaro (5 March 2012). "Cambridge University plans £30m VC fund and opens door to non-uni investment". Cabume. Cambridge. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
  15. Quested, Tony (27 March 2012). "Gates no barrier to Bango enterprise". Business Weekly. Retrieved 28 March 2012.
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