Biography

Dr Bryan Beresford-Smith is a senior researcher within the NICTA theme of Making Sense of Data. He is now working in the life sciences where he is applying his research and commercial experience in mathematics and computer science to bioinformatics and collaboration with biologists, especially in the field of genomics.

Previous Positions

Dr Beresford-Smith was a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Newcastle before moving to private industry. He held positions at a number of companies including RLM, where he worked on the JORN Over-the-Horizon Radar project, and Bandspeed, where he worked on ADSL communication. He also helped establish a company called Axis Motion which produces machine control software and hardware. Immediately prior to joining National ICT Australia, Dr Beresford-Smith was a mathematical and computing consultant to the ARC Centre of Excellence in the Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems at The University of Melbourne.

Qualifications

Dr Beresford-Smith earned his Honours degree in Pure Mathematics at the Australian National University, Canberra; and a PhD in Applied Mathematics/Colloid Science at the Research School of Physical Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra.

Research Interests

His research interests have included parallel algorithms and architectures, real-time systems, wireless networks and more recently bioinformatics and genomics. Of particular interest is the collaboration with biologists and the development of new techniques for in-silico genetic analysis in order to answer important biological and disease related questions. One area of current focus is the processing of the enormous amounts of data from new high-throughput genome sequencing technologies in order to extract useful information.

NICTA Projects

Dr Beresford-Smith was involved in NICTA’s Sensor Networks research program and in developing the NICTOR low power, survivable and scalable wireless sensor network platform optimized for water management. More recently he has been collaborating with biologists in genomics research.