Dr William Waites
Room 1220 Livingstone Tower william.waites @ strath.ac.uk Glasgow, Scotland wwaites @ inf.ed.ac.uk G1 1XH
I'm a Chancellor's Fellow and Lecturer (Assistant Professor, more or less) in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Strathclyde. Before coming to Strathclyde, I worked at the Centre for mathematical modelling of infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and before that I spent many happy years at the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh where I am still an honorary member of staff.
My work explores the boundaries between art and technology, theory and practice. Most of my scholarly work is in the general area of mathematical modelling of relationships and processes in complex systems. Some notable highlights:
- Introducing rule-based process calculus techniques to the study of epidemics.
- A report on Storm Babet in Granton Harbour, Edinburgh. Some videos: pathological breaking waves in the harbour, Hale Kai dragging its mooring
- Guiding technical aspects of a regional radio network in the Lake Chad basin.
- Organising a network of networks of community owned and operated Internet service providers in the Highlands of Scotland.
- Irregular logistics and communications on the US Gulf Coast during and after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
- Instigating a worker's cooperative in Montreal for hosting web services for not for profit organisations.
- Introducing the Internet to artists and musicians in Toronto and doing some of the first Internet streaming of live shows.
- Ceol Màr on the Highland Bagpipe
For better or worse, Google does a better job of keeping track of my publications, in areas ranging from epidemics to information theory to linked data and the semantic web, than I do myself.