In the systems research area, our work covers a broad range of topics related to the design, implementation, experimental evaluation as well as verification and analysis of software and hardware systems. We span all levels of the systems stack: we investigate custom hardware designs and their impact on compilers and systems support; we explore new abstractions for systems software and distributed systems, with an emphasis on performance, security, reliability, and manageability; and we develop new software engineering practices for the design, modeling, and validation of complex software and hardware systems.

Our research in systems is driven by real-world challenges in the domains of cloud computing, cyber-physical systems, cybersecurity, data centres, data science, embedded systems, high-performance computing, pervasive systems, and reconfigurable computing. Much of our work has contributed to novel designs and optimisations for many applications, including big data analysis, biomedical computation, climate modelling, financial simulation, machine learning, policy management, and sensing.

We publish our scientific results across the architecture, data management, networking, performance engineering, software engineering, security, and systems communities. Many of our software and hardware implementations are available as open-source contributions.

Related videos

Towards the Diamond Age

After a decade as an academic pursuit, there is now a strong belief that dust particle sized sensors could enable whole new computer architectures, complementing cloud-based systems but pushing processing power out to these small devices in the field and bring about The Diamond Age of nanotechnology described in Neal Stephenson's award winning novel of the same name.

Towards the Diamond Age

Towards the Diamond Age

Dust particle sized sensors could enable whole new computer architectures

After a decade as an academic pursuit, there is now a strong belief that dust particle sized sensors could enable whole new computer architectures, complementing cloud-based systems but pushing processing power out to these small devices in the field and bring about The Diamond Age of nanotechnology described in Neal Stephenson's award winning novel of the same name.

Rigorous engineering - What can we do? What should we do?

Rigorous engineering - What can we do? What should we do?

Developing and applying semantic models and tools for several key abstractions

The REMS project, Rigorous Engineering for Mainstream Systems, is developing and applying semantic models and tools for several key abstractions, including ARM, IBM POWER, and CHERI multiprocessors, C/C++ concurrency, C language, linking, POSIX filesystems, and TLS. 

Autonomous computing and software systems

Autonomous computing and software systems

Autonomous computing and software systems and its possible application in the space sector

Professor Julie McCann discusses her work in autonomous computing and software systems and its possible application in the space sector.

Julie McCann: Smart dust

Julie McCann: Smart dust

Algorithms that allow distributed wireless networks to become self-organising

Professor Julie McCann takes her inspiration from nature for writing algorithms that allow distributed wireless networks to become self-organising, adaptive and intelligent. Julie's technologies already find a home in monitoring water networks and to monitor pollution in cities. Looking ahead, sensors the size of dust will supersede today's cloud-based processing -- computing intelligence will move out on the edge.

Academics

Academics

  • Dr Cristian Cadar

    Personal details

    Dr Cristian Cadar Professor in Software Reliability

    +44 (0)20 7594 8244

    Location

    435, Huxley Building

    Research interests

    Software engineering, computer systems, software security, practical techniques for improving software reliability and security.

  • Dr Giuliano Casale

    Personal details

    Dr Giuliano Casale Reader

    +44 (0)20 7594 2920

    Location

    432, Huxley Building

    Research interests

    Quality-of-service, resource management, fault-tolerance, cloud computing.

  • Dr Soteris Demetriou

    Personal details

    Dr Soteris Demetriou Lecturer

    Location

    Room 353, ACE Extension

    Research Interest

    Mobile computing, security and privacy, systems security, smartphone security, Internet-of-Things (IoT) security.

  • Prof Alastair Donaldson

    Personal details

    Prof Alastair Donaldson Professor

    +44 (0)20 7594 8266

    Location

    422, Huxley Building

    Research interests

    Formal verification for multicore software, software performance optimization.

  • Dr Naranker Dulay

    Personal details

    Dr Naranker Dulay Reader in Computing Science

    +44 (0)20 7594 8288

    Location

    562, Huxley Building

    Research interests

    Security, pervasive/mobile/distributed systems, networking, software engineering, systems, and network management, applied machine learning.

  • Dr Tony Field

    Personal details

    Dr Tony Field Reader in Performance Engineering

    +44 (0)20 7594 8364

    Location

    354, Huxley Building

    Research interests

    Functional programming, engineering for high performance, simulation.

  • Professor Hamed Haddadi

    Personal details

    Professor Hamed Haddadi Professor of Human-Centred Systems

    +44 20 7594 2584

    Location

    I-X, Translation and Innovation Hub (I-HUB), White City Campus

    Research interests

    User-centred systems, networking, applied machine learning, privacy, security.

  • Dr Thomas Heinis

    Personal details

    Dr Thomas Heinis Reader

    +44 (0)20 7594 8276

    Location

    423, Huxley Building

    Research interests

    Scientific data management, distributed data processing, spatial databases, indexing.

  • Prof. Paul Kelly

    Personal details

    Prof. Paul Kelly Professor of Software Technology

    +44 (0)20 7594 8332

    Location

    L3 (upstairs), William Penney Building
    304, Huxley Building

    Research interests

    Programming languages, compilers, parallel computing, domain-specific tools and libraries, performance issues, irregular and data intensive applications, performance evaluation, modelling, and prediction.

  • Prof. William Knottenbelt

    Personal details

    Prof. William Knottenbelt Professor of Applied Quantitative Analysis

    +44 (0)20 7594 8331

    Location

    363, ACE Extension

    Research interests

    Mathematical modelling and optimisation, parallel queueing systems, resource allocation, Markov models, decentralised finance, blockchain, and cryptocurrencies.

  • Dr Marios Kogias

    Personal details

    Dr Marios Kogias Lecturer

    Location

    407c, 4th Floor, Huxley Building

    Research interests

    Operating systems, networking, distributed systems, datacentres, in-network compute.

  • Prof. Kin Leung

    Personal details

    Prof. Kin Leung Tanaka Chair in Internet Technology

    +44 (0)20 7594 6238

    Location

    810a, Electrical Engineering

    Research interests

    Communication networks, distributed and quantum computing, AI / machine learning, optimization, stochastic modeling.

  • Prof. Wayne Luk

    Personal details

    Prof. Wayne Luk Professor of Computer Engineering

    +44 (0)20 7594 8313

    Location

    434, Huxley Building

    Research interests

    Hardware and architecture, reconfigurable computing, design automation.

  • Prof. Emil Lupu

    Personal details

    Prof. Emil Lupu Professor of Computer Systems

    +44 (0)20 7594 8249

    Location

    564, Huxley Building

    Research interests

    Adaptive systems, security, personal networks for healthcare, autonomous vehicles, wireless sensor networks, security for sensor-based environments, security management and authorisation policies.

  • Prof. Julie McCann

    Personal details

    Prof. Julie McCann Professor of Computer Systems

    +44 (0) 20 7594 8375

    Location

    258, ACE Extension

    Research interests

    Decentralised algorithms, network protocols, wireless sensor networks, ubiquitous, mobile, and autonomic computing.

  • Prof. Peter Pietzuch

    Personal details

    Prof. Peter Pietzuch Professor of Distributed Systems and Director of Research

    +44 (0)20 7594 8314

    Location

    442, Huxley Building

    Research interests

    Distributed systems, operating systems, data management, stream processing, data-intensive applications, networking, systems for machine learning, security, confidential computing, trusted hardware, and decentralised ledgers.

  • Dr Holger Pirk

    Personal details

    Dr Holger Pirk Senior Lecturer

    +44 (0)20 7594 3008

    Location

    431, Huxley Building

    Research interests

    Data management, database systems, analytical query processing, and processing models for modern hardware.

  • Dr. Azalea Raad

    Personal details

    Dr. Azalea Raad Lecturer

    Location

    Huxley Building

  • Dr. Lluis Vilanova

    Personal details

    Dr. Lluis Vilanova Senior Lecturer

    Location

    556, Huxley Building

    Research interests

    Computer architecture; operating systems; distributed systems; security and privacy; heterogeneous, parallel and accelerated systems; virtualization; cloud; hardware/software interfaces and co-design.