David is Professor of Computational Biology in the Computer Science Department at the University of Oxford. His research has focused on applying mathematical and computational techniques to scientific problems drawn from biology, medicine and the associated basic sciences. The computational complexity of these real-world applications has resulted in a long-standing interest in developing robust software and the computational infrastructures necessary to make that software accessible to the research community. All of his work is conducted in direct collaboration with theoretical, computational, clinical and experimental groups, both in academia and in industry. He also has a long-standing interest in doctoral training, having established one of the first EPSRC-funded CDTs at the Life-Sciences interface in 2002, with the Doctoral Training Centre that he still leads having now admitted over 1250 PhD students across 9 programmes. He was the Chief Scientific Officer of the Oxford start-up company colwiz from 2010 until its acquisition by Taylor and Francis in 2017, and has a long-standing interest in the development and promotion of responsible and reproducible research methods. David is also University Advocate for Research Staff and Chair of the University’s Graduate Access Working Group. He helps coordinate the work of a wide group of central teams and divisional colleagues to improve the experiences of the University’s graduate students and fixed-term researchers, as well as strengthening Oxford’s research culture.
