Computational Challenges of Systems Biology
Fall 2008 CSE Colloquium Series
Professor and Department Head
Department of Computer Science
University College London
Date: November 19
Time: 9:30 AM - 10:30 AM
3105 Engineering Building
Abstract
Systems Biology is an important and highly demanding area of interdisciplinary science. The talk will argue that, as a discipline, computer science has much to contribute to meeting these demands. I will outline what systems biology is, and relate it to bioinformatics. I will then briefly review the computing contributions to the state-of-the-art. I will outline the challenges for computer science in this new and largely uncharted area. An example illustrating the complexities that need to be faced will be presented. I will conclude by marking some staging posts for future progress in the area.
Biography
Anthony Finkelstein a graduate in systems engineering holding a BEng, MSC and PhD. He is Professor of Software Systems Engineering at University College London (UCL), a leading UK research university, where he works in the broad field of software systems engineering.
He has published more than 185 scientific papers and secured more than £12m of research funding. He is a Fellow of both the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the British Computer Society and has served on their senior committees. He has been recognised for his contributions to the field of requirements engineering and for his professional service by the IEEE. In 2003 he was a winner of the prestigious International Conference on Software Engineering 'most influential paper' prize for work on 'viewpoints' and in 2004 was winner of the Requirements Engineering 'most influential paper' prize for work on traceability. In 2005 he was a member of the winning team of the first Times Higher Education Supplement 'Research Project of the Year'. He has served on numerous editorial boards including that of ACM TOSEM and IEEE TSE, and was founder editor of Automated Software Engineering. The 'state-of-the-art' review he edited remains the publication with the highest impact factor in software engineering. He also chaired numerous international meetings and was General Chair of the International Conference on Software Engineering 2004. He was keynote speaker at Automated Software Engineering 2003 in Montreal, Canada and keynote speaker at the International Conference on Requirements Engineering 2007.
He is outgoing Chair of IFIP WG 2.9 (Software Requirements Engineering) an international research society. He established the research group in software systems engineering at UCL and played a key role in the foundation of London Software Systems. He is now Head of the Department of Computer Science at UCL. He serves on the UK Research Assessment Exercise panel for Computer Science and Informatics and was a member of the Committee of Visitors for the US National Science Foundation.
He has provided consultancy advice to a large number of high profile companies and to Universities on the organisation of their information services. He was Founder and Director of Systemwire Ltd., a UCL spinout acquired by trade sale in 2006 and he is a consultant Chief Scientist of Message Automation Ltd.