Oscar Peter Buneman, (born 1943) is a British computer scientist who works in the areas of

database systems In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

and

database theory Database theory encapsulates a broad range of topics related to the study and research of the theoretical realm of databases and database management systems. Theoretical aspects of data management include, among other areas, the foundations of q ...

Education

Buneman was educated at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts while studying the

Cambridge Mathematical Tripos The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. It is the oldest Tripos examined at the University. Origin In its classical nineteenth-century form, the tripos was ...

from

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...

. Buneman went on to study at the

University of Warwick , mottoeng = Mind moves matter , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £7.0 million (2021) , budget = £698.2 million (2020� ...

, where he received his PhD in 1970.

Career

Following his PhD, Buneman worked briefly at the University of Edinburgh, followed by a professorship of computer science at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, which he held for several decades. In 2002, he moved to the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

, where he built up the database research group. He is one of the founders and the Associate Director of Research of the UK

Digital Curation Centre The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) was established to help solve the extensive challenges of digital preservation and digital curation and to lead research, development, advice, and support services for higher education institutions in the Unite ...

, which is located in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

. Buneman is known for his research in database systems and database theory, in particular for establishing connections between

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...

s and programming language theory, such as introducing

monad Monad may refer to: Philosophy * Monad (philosophy), a term meaning "unit" **Monism, the concept of "one essence" in the metaphysical and theological theory ** Monad (Gnosticism), the most primal aspect of God in Gnosticism * ''Great Monad'', a ...

-based query languages for nested relations and complex object databases. He also pioneered research on managing

semi-structured data Semi-structured data is a form of structured data that does not obey the tabular structure of data models associated with relational databases or other forms of data tables, but nonetheless contains tags or other markers to separate semantic elem ...

, and, recently, research on data provenance, annotations, and digital curation. In computational biology, he is known for his work on reconstructing phylogenetic trees based on Buneman graphs, which are named in his honour.

Awards and honours

Buneman is a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...

, fellow of the ACM, a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and has won a

Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award The Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award was an award made by the Royal Society from 2000 to 2020. It was administered by the Royal Society and jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the UK Office of Science and Technology, to provide ...

. He has chaired both flagship research conferences in data management,

SIGMOD SIGMOD is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Management of Data, which specializes in large-scale data management problems and databases. The annual ACM SIGMOD Conference, which began in 1975, is considered one of ...

(in 1993) and VLDB (in 2008), as well as the main database theory conference, PODS (in 2001). Buneman was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to data systems and computing. His nomination for the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

reads

Personal life

Buneman is the son of physicist Oscar Buneman.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buneman, Peter Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Database researchers British computer scientists Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Academics of the University of Edinburgh Alumni of the University of Warwick Members of the Order of the British Empire Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holders University of Pennsylvania faculty Living people 1943 births