Computer Science

Fellows:
Dr Andrew D Ker
Professor A William Roscoe
Professor Jotun O P Hein
Professor Michael Benedikt

Junior Research Fellows:
Dr S Zivny

Student Profile:
Andrew Bate (2nd year)

Univ has always led the way in Computer Science at Oxford. We were the first college in Oxford to appoint a Tutorial Fellow in Computer Science, and we now boast a larger number of Computer Science Fellows than any other college, and an academic record of excellence. Many of our undergraduates have gone on to academic posts in Computer Science at universities around the world. Others have taken their highly transferable skills into the city, or to work in the ever-expanding computing industry.

We admit between two and four students to the Computer Science and Mathematics & Computer Science courses each year; we do not distinguish at admission between the three- and four-year courses. An A2 or equivalent qualification in Mathematics is essential. Many applicants also study Further Maths; this is desirable though not essential for the joint course but of less relevance to the single honours course. Students who have the necessary aptitude and motivation with just a single A-level have been very successful in their course. Most applicants have had some experience of using computers, but this is not necessary, and an A-level in Computer Science confers no particular advantage.

Apart from departmentally based lectures, our primary method of instruction is the tutorial; Computer Science and Mathematics & Computer Science students attend tutorials in College for all of the first-year courses and most of the second year. Subsequently, the courses move towards specialized material which is taught in the Computing Laboratory, although the College tutors can provide some additional revision tuition. Many courses also contain practical programming tasks.

The College has a range of computing facilities both on the main site and at the Staverton Road annexe, and all student rooms have a high-speed connection to the University network and the internet. The Computing Laboratory is about 10 minutes’ walk from the College site; it has further computing facilities.

The Computer Science course is not only about learning to program. It requires precision and clarity of thought, to understand what computers and programs do, and to construct watertight proofs that they work correctly and efficiently. The Fellows of the College have particular research interests at the interface between Mathematics and Computer Science, although this is not necessarily the case for the students they admit.

Professor Roscoe is head of the Computing Laboratory. His world-leading research interests involve concurrent (parallel) processes, ranging from building complex mathematical models to creating theorem-proving tools and applying them to areas such as computer security and hardware design. He has been a Tutorial Fellow in Computer Science for more than 20 years.

Professor Hein’s field is bioinformatics, at the boundary of computer science, statistics, and genetics.

Dr Ker is a Tutorial Fellow in Computing Science, which he holds in conjunction with a University Lecturership in Computing Science (Security). His research is in the area known as steganography: techniques for hiding data in media (for example, embedding secret messages in digital images) and digital watermarking.

Professor Benedikt works on the exchange and analysis of information in databases and on the Web, often using techniques from mathematical logic.

For more information, please consult the website of the Computing Laboratory.

For information about the joint degree with Computer Science, see also the website of the Mathematical Institute.