School of Computing and Mathematics

I obtained my Bachelor's degree in Statistics and Operational Research, together with an MSc in Statistics, at Manchester.

Before joining the lecturing staff of the Mathematics department at Keele in 1987, I worked for several years in mathematical modelling at a consultancy involved in operational analysis and reliability.

In my early years at Keele I completed a part-time PhD in stochastic dynamic programming. Since then I have developed a personal research program with a stochastic flavour. I am a problem solver rather than a systematic theory developer.

In teaching, I have delivered and designed a wide spectrum of lecture courses up to Masters level in operational research, probability and pure mathematics. I have also fulfilled many administrative roles in Mathematics.

I enjoy reading Victorian novels, listening to instrumental Baroque and earlier music, and, being a committed Christian, am busy in my church.

My research interests lie in applied probability and stochastic operational research.

For many years I have studied decision-making problems that involve the selection of objects from a random sequence. The aim is to understand the properties of optimal and heuristic policies for choosing one or more objects, given that future object qualities are unknown to the selector. I have focused my attention on variants involving either multiple selection, or single selection with partially ordered object qualities.

One version of these sequential selection problems, in which each procured object leaves after a random time, is a model for personnel recruitment and retention. This model led to the study of infinite server queueing systems. Here I have studied fine congestion details of the standard M/M/. model as well as the behaviour of extended models in which either the customers or the servers are ranked.

Traditionally such systems have been used to represent emergency medical facilities, and I have also been involved in some applied studies of health service queues.

For a number of years, in collaboration with a former Keele geologist, I have been engaged in creating simulation software for modelling hydrocarbon reservoirs.

In addition to this regular research work, I have dealt with numerous consultation questions. These include: speech recognition, floating spiders, bus timetabling, political gerrymandering and cutting stock.

MAT-10041: Algebra II
MAT-20024: Operational Research
MAT-30026: Probability Models