Philippa Anne Gardner (born 29 July 1965) is a British

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

and academic. She has been

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

Theoretical Computer Science Theoretical computer science is a subfield of computer science and mathematics that focuses on the Abstraction, abstract and mathematical foundations of computation. It is difficult to circumscribe the theoretical areas precisely. The Associati ...

at the Department of Computing,

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

since 2009. She was director of the Research Institute in Automated Program Analysis and Verification between 2013 and 2016. In 2020 Gardner was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senio ...

Early life and education

Gardner was born on 29 July 1965 in

Exeter Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, England. In 1988 she completed an MSc in logic and computation from

Bristol University The University of Bristol is a public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Bristol, which had ...

, supervised by John Shepherdson. Her doctoral studies were supervised by

Gordon Plotkin Gordon David Plotkin (born 9 September 1946) is a theoretical computer scientist in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Plotkin is probably best known for his introduction of structural operational semantics (SOS) and his ...

at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

; she was awarded her

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1992. Her

doctoral thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

was titled "Representing Logics in Type Theory".

Career

After being awarded an EPSRC Advanced Fellowship at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

with

Robin Milner Arthur John Robin Gorell Milner (13 January 1934 – 20 March 2010) was a British computer scientist, and a Turing Award winner.The Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

between 1994 and 1996. She took a lectureship with

in 2001. She was appointed

of Theoretical Computer Science in 2009. From 2018 to 2023 she was awarded a UKRI Established Fellowship. Gardner was on the Newton International Fellowships Committee: Physical Sciences, for The Royal Society, from 2010 to 2012. Gardner's role with the Research Institute in Automated Program Analysis and Verification was funded by

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primar ...

and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Gardner was awarded the President & Rector's Award for Excellence in Teaching at

in 2013 and for Excellence in Research Supervision in 2019. Her current research looks at program verification. A major project she pursues is building Gillian, a platform for developing symbolic analysis tools.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gardner, Philippa 1965 births Living people Alumni of the University of Edinburgh British women computer scientists British theoretical computer scientists Scientists from Exeter Academics of the Department of Computing, Imperial College London Fellows of the British Computer Society Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Female fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering