Computer Science and Information Systems (PhD / MPhil) - 2013/2014 entry

Birkbeck's Department of Computer Science and Information Systems was founded over 50 years ago, making it one of the oldest academic computing departments. Since 1946, when Professor AD Booth began building the College’s first computer, the department has evolved into a world-class research centre, as witnessed by our RAE 2008 results.

The department has two major research groups: the Computational Intelligence Group; and the Information Management and Web Technologies Group. Our research is focused on data management, data mining and machine learning, knowledge representation and reasoning, logic and artificial intelligence, semantic web technologies, search engines, mobile and ubiquitous computing, computer vision and image processing, adaptive systems, bio-inspired computing and social networks.

We also have a major research collaboration with our neighbouring Institute of Education, the London Knowledge Lab, which is a multidisciplinary research laboratory exploring how digital technologies and new media are shaping the future of knowledge and learning.

Students who successfully complete this MPhil or PhD degree will have gained expert knowledge in their chosen research area and the ability to perform research-led activities in a broader context. In addition, students who successfully complete the PhD degree will have gained the ability to identify and solve complex problems arising in their chosen research area, and will have made a substantial original contribution to this area.

Study resources include a course on research methods for computer science and information systems, regular research seminars, and extensive computing facilities. As a research student, you will have 24-hour access to servers and networked PCs running a range of language compilers, database, data mining and other specialist software.

The College library subscribes to the major digital library resources in computer science.

Find out more about current MPhil/PhD students in the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems.

• Andrea Calì, MEng, PhD: Database theory; logic and databases; knowledge representation and reasoning; financial data management; ontologies and semantic web; semantics in social networks.
• Trevor Fenner, MA, PhD, CEng, MBCS: Algorithms and data structures; combinatorial and probabilistic methods; graph theory; web models; programming languages; bioinformatics.
• Sergio Gutierrez Santos: MEng, PhD: learning technologies, complex systems and swarm intelligence behaviours.
• Roman Kontchakov, BSc, MSc, PhD: Knowledge representation and reasoning; ontologies and databases; computer science logic; spatial, temporal and description logics.
• Oded Lachish, BSc, MSc, PhD: Algorithms and complexity with a focus on theory and practice of computation with extremely limited resources.
• Professor Mark Levene, BSc, PhD: Web information retrieval and navigation; web data mining; adaptive web technologies; machine learning in games.
• George Magoulas, BEng, MEng, PGCE, PhD, MIEEE: Learning, adaptation and evolution in complex environments; computational intelligence and applications in user modelling, temporal sequence processing, adaptive systems and personalised learning environments.
• Keith Mannock, BSc, PhD: Software engineering; information retrieval and hypermedia.
• Nigel Martin, MSc, PhD, CEng, MBCS: Information management and integration; life sciences informatics.
• Professor Steve Maybank, BA, MA, PhD, FIMA, FRSS: Computer vision; CCTV surveillance; tracking; object recognition; statistics.
• Szabolcs Mikulas, MSc, PhD: Algebraic, modal and temporal logic, and its applications.
• Professor Alexandra Poulovassilis, MA, MSc, PhD, CEng, MBCS: Databases; information management, integration and visualisation; learning environments.
• George Roussos, BSc, MSc, PhD: RFID; pervasive computing; wireless sensor networks.
• David Weston, BSc, MSc, PhD: Machine Learning; data-mining; machine vision; spatial point pattern analysis.
• David Wilson, PGD, PhD, MBCS: Maturity models in information systems; strategy and cross-cultural issues in global information systems.
• Peter Wood, BSc, MSc, PhD: Database, query languages; rule languages; query optimisation.
• Professor Michael Zakharyaschev, MSc, PhD, Habil: Knowledge representation and reasoning; semantic web and ontologies; modal, spatial, temporal, description logics.
• Dell Zhang, BEng, PhD, SMACM, SMIEE, FRSS: Information retrieval; data mining; machine learning; social network analysis.

Potential applicants are welcome to contact academic staff about their research before making a formal application: 

Find out more about the department's research groups and the research activities of individual staff.

You can also contact the research admissions tutor, Dr Peter Wood, with general enquiries about research activities.

• You can apply, and start studying, at any time during the year, although October is the usual start date.