Supervised by: William Knottenbelt

Topic of PhD:  The efficient solution in parallel across multiple computers of very large systems of linear equations.

Nick was  PhD student from 2000 - 2004.

What is he doing now: He is currently a Big Data Scientist at OCF. Parallel computing plays a central role when analysing the large data sets that give "Big Data" its name, and he is applying the data analysis skills he's built up in his previous roles to this new and exciting area.

I’ve had a variety of jobs since my PhD. I first worked as an analyst at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), before returning to academia as a Research Associate in the Department of Computing at Imperial College and then in the School of Mathematics at the University of Manchester. On completion of these fixed-term positions I joined the Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) as a High Performance Computing (HPC) Software Developer, where I helped scientists to debug and optimise their codes so that they could better exploit the performance of the UK's national supercomputer.  My PhD has definitely stood me in good stead in my career and it's given me a range of skills that I've been able to apply in a variety of fields. The programming and mathematical skills have been important, there's no doubt about that, but just as vital have been the soft skills like the ability to present my work confidently both in writing and in person.