Background
I graduated with a B.Sc. in Computer Applications from Dublin City University in 1986. From 1986 to 1997, I worked for IBM Ireland Ltd. in various software development technical roles.
During this time, I lead software development teams building applications that required development on a range of platforms, using a variety of programming languages, though primarily object-oriented ones.
In 1997, my interest in object-oriented software engineering led me to pursue research into improving object-oriented
analysis and design methods. I returned to DCU to study for a Ph.D., and worked on extending the decomposition and
composition capabilities of object-oriented design languages, with particular focus on the UML. As part of the research
for my Ph.D., I worked in
the software composition group at
the IBM T.J.Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, New York for the summer of 1998. I joined Trinity College as a lecturer in September 2000, and became a member of
the Distributed Systems Group (DSG). Since I assumed the lead of DSG in 2006, the team has grown to over 60 researchers, expanding to include 12 academics. The success of DSG and its smart cities research lead Trinity College to recognise "Smart and Sustainable Cities" as a key strategic area of research, and I have since launched a College-wide Research Centre, Future Cities, focussing on multi-disciplinary research on smart and sustainable cities. The Future Cities Centre includes researchers from computer science, statistics, information systems, engineering, natural sciences, social sciences, chemistry, arts, nursing and midwifery, business and law, and has already engaged industry partners in research strategy forums.
I am an active participant in the international research community. My community involvement spans membership of editorial boards (examples, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, and on Services Computing), conference/workshop organising committees and technical program committees.
I was elected Fellow of Trinity College Dublin in 2006 in recognition of research achievement, and appointed Professor in 2012.