Dr Tim Kelly (Chair of Functional Safety Network)

Dr Kelly is a Lecturer within the Department of Computer Science at the University of York.  He is also Deputy Director of the Rolls-Royce Systems and Software Engineering University Technology Centre funded at York. 

His expertise lies predominantly in the areas of safety case development and management.  In addition, he has wide knowledge and experience of systems and software safety assurance practice and standards (both in civil and military domains).  Dr Kelly has provided extensive consultative and facilitative support in the production of acceptable safety cases for companies from the defence, railways and power generation sectors. 

Prior to taking a lectureship at York, Dr Kelly also worked closely with safety engineers in Rolls-Royce as the Rolls-Royce Fellow in Safety. He has published over 50 papers on safety case development and software safety research in international journals and conferences and has been an invited speaker on software safety issues. 

Currently, Dr Kelly is supervising EPSRC funded research investigating certification strategies for Artificial Neural Networks; QinetiQ funded research exploring the safety justification of multi-agent systems; QinetiQ funded research concerning the safety justification of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software components.  MoD/EPSRC/DTI joint funded research into the safety justification of Systems of Systems; and Airbus UK funded work on software architecture development and assessment for safety. 

He is also Managing Director of Origin Consulting (York) Limited – a consultancy company specialising in safety critical systems development and assurance and Chairman of the IET Functional Safety Professional Network.

Audrey Canning (Deputy Chair of Functional Safety Network)

Mrs Audrey Canning graduated from Churchill College Cambridge with an MA in Engineering Sciences.  She is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the IET. She has 30 years of experience in the computer systems industry, for the last 25 years specialising in safety related computer applications and advanced software systems. 

In 1997 she founded Virkonnen Ltd. specialising in computer system safety management and system and software hazard analysis.  Throughout her career she has been active in a wide range of advanced software programmes, including artificial intelligence, software engineering environments and high integrity software systems.  She represents the UK on the IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 functional safety standards and is Deputy Chair of the IET Functional Safety Professional Network.

Tom Anderson

Tom Anderson is Professor of Computing Science and Director of the Centre for Software Reliability at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.  In 1971 he joined the academic staff at Newcastle University, 1986 appointed to a Chair, 1992-97 Head of Computing Science, 1998-2002 Dean of Science.  During this time he has spent a year with NASA and a summer at UCLA, as well as engaging in a range of external consultancy and expert witness work.

Current responsibilities include the management of a research group on dependable critical systems, with a staff complement of 50 funded by EPSRC, industry, and the CEC—plus the coordination of a series of industry oriented technology transfer events (about ten each year). 

His research interests are in the area of system dependability, with particular emphasis on requirements, critical systems and fault tolerance.  He has 140 scientific publications, including the co-authorship or editorship of 22 books.

Ron Bell

Ron Bell is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.  For over 25 years he has been involved with the development of guidelines and standards for safety-related control systems (particularly those that are computer based).  He is Head of the Electrical and Control Systems Group in the Health & Safety Executive and a member of the bi-national (UK/France) Channel Tunnel Safety Authority.

He was chairman of one of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) working groups responsible for developing IEC 61508; is currently project leader for the revision of IEC 61508 and chairs one of the two teams responsible for the revision.

He is a member of the IEC Advisory Committee on Safety (ACOS) with particular responsibilities for functional safety.

Bill  Black

Bill Black worked for BP until 1999.  During his time at BP he provided consultancy on process control and process protection systems.  In 1999 he started a new company called Blacksafe Consulting Ltd that provides training and consultancy on the application of safety systems.  He was a member of the working group that developed IEC 61508 and is now part of the maintenance team.  He is also involved in the development of the process sector standard IEC 61511 and the Off-shore sector standard ISO 13702 and ISO 10418.

Mike  Brown

Air vice-Marshal M J D Brown MA CEng CMath CSci FRAeS FIMA FRIN Mike Brown enlisted in the RAF as a Technical Cadet in 1953. He studied general engineering at Trinity Hall Cambridge, receiving his BA degree in 1957 (MA 1961). Following a post-graduate course in communications-electronics, he completed his RAF flying training and received his pilot's 'wings' in 1959.

An appointment in general engineering was followed by signals duties in Kenya and advanced specialist training in weapon systems technologies.

A wide range of  command and staff duties whose highlights included operational analysis, head of an MOD operational requirements branch, chief engineer at an air defence radar station, and commanding officer of RAF North Luffenham, culminated in appointments in the MOD Procurement Executive as Director of Air Guided Weapons and finally as Director-General of Strategic Electronic Systems. 

In the latter post he was responsible for formulating the policy and directing the preparation of Defence Standars 00-55 and 00-56 which have had a major influence on the engineering of safety-critical computer based systems in defence and related fields.

He is a graduate of the RAF Staff College and the USAF Air War College, and a 1981 Member of the Royal College of Defence Studies.  He is currently serving on the Council of the Royal Institute of Navigation, and has been a member of the Organising Committee since the inception of the Safety Critical Systems Course in 1992.

Paul  Caseley

Paul Caseley works for the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) Defence Science and Technologies Laboratory (Dstl). He has over twenty years experience at all levels of the system and software development lifecycle. His role is as a researcher and advisor for MOD in software, system safety and system measurement.  Paul also works extensively within the UK safety community and is currently the chair of the IEE/BCS Independent Safety Assessors working group, a member of the IEE Functional Safety executive committee and the MOD safety standard review committee.

Paul has helped develop guidelines on the use of Independent Safety Auditors in MOD projects and is has investigated an evidence based approach to certifying the safety of software for the MOD. This latter study was the precursor for the software element of Def Stan 00-56 Issue 3.

Paul is a CEng and is a member of the BCS and IET.

Professor Chris Johnson
DPhil, MSc, MA, FBCS, CEng, CITP, University of Glasgow,

Chris is Professor of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow.
He heads a small team looking at techniques to improve the investigation and
 reporting of incidents and accidents.  He helped to develop European guidelines on mishap reporting in European Air Traffic Management and is part of a team developing contingency plans for security and safety related incidents.   More recently he has been involved in simualtion and planning for attacks on military and civil targets.

Bob Malcolm

Bob Malcolm is a consultant in research management and strategy, advising industry, universities, and local, national and international governmental agencies.  His background is systems engineering, originally in the aerospace and computing services industries.  He was Project Director for the government-sponsored IEE-BCS study of the Safety of Computer-based Systems, and chairman of the associated all-industries working party, which led to the establishment of the DTI-EPSRC 'Safety Critical Systems Research Programme'- for which he was programme co-ordinator - and the Safety Critical Systems Club, being the present chairman of the Steering Group for the Club. 

He has chaired and participated in many institutional, professional and national committees and advisory groups. He is Immediate Past-Chairman of the Research and Development Society, a visiting professor at the University of Surrey, and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the University of Hertfordshire.

Rod May

Rod May is an consultant engineer providing services in safety/project assurance and professional competence. His functional-safety assignments include safety assessments, safety cases and safety management systems. 

Recent assignments have had an air-transportation bias, usually for systems which rely on software for their safe operation. He has worked on competency management systems for several concerns and has been involved with the HSE/IEE/BCS study on competencies since 1995. Previously Rod held senior positions in design and marketing for Hewlett Packard, Eurotherm and CSE International. A CEng and FIEE, he has a PhD and BSc in Engineering from Warwick and Leicester respectively.

Stuart Nunns

Stuart has thirty-three years experience in automation and safety within the chemical, steel and electricity generation sectors and is a Principal Consultant within ABB’s Automation Technology Division -Automation & Safety Group and a member of their Safety Steering Team responsible for identifying and managing the development of products and services mapping the total safety lifecycle. 

Stuart is a member of the IET Functional Safety Professional Network Executive Group and the InstMC’s Safety Panel. He has written and presented papers and led international safety-related systems workshops.  He was project manager of both the CUIG (Framework IV) European safety group and the F/W V SIPI61508 EC Framework V project developing guiding principals for the implementation of IEC 61508.  

Within the UK he was the instigator and project manager of the CASS (conformity assessment of safety systems to IEC 61508) scheme, in addition to being a Director of CASS Ltd.

Barrie Reynolds

Barrie Reynolds has a BSc. in Electrical Engineering from Nottingham University, is a Chartered Engineer, and a Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). He is a Principal Consultant with Honeywell Control Systems Ltd. specialising in reliability and safety assessment.

Barrie is chairman of BSI GEL 65/1 Process Control Systems committee which is responsible for the IEC 61508 and IEC61511 Functional Safety standards in the UK, and represents GAMBICA on the BSI GEL65, GEL 65/2, (Process Control)committees, and nominated UK expert to CLC TC31-WG09  (CENELEC, Hazardous Atmospheres and Functional Safety)

Barrie is also chairman of The CASS Scheme Ltd., and was an active member of the Technical Team developing the CASS schedules for Conformance Assessment of Safety-Related Systems to IEC61508.

David Smith

Dr David J Smith BSc,PhD,CEng,FIEE,FIQA,HonFSaRS,MIGasE) has had over thirty years of experience in reliability and risk assessment and inhouse training courses.  David has written and updated a number of textbooks and software packages on the above topics and remains an authority in his field. He chairs the IGEM panel which produces guidelines on safety related programmable systems and is Past President of the Safety and Reliability Society.

Adrian Walmsley

Adrian's first brushes with computing were as a vac student in the mid 1960s with the Martin Marietta Corporation in Baltimore (Fortran and punched cards) and with ICI Research (Algol and paper tape).

Since graduating, he has worked in the IT industry for 38 years, most of the time in a variety of technical roles with IBM in the UK and USA.

He is now running his own IT consultancy company, having taken early retirement from IBM at the beginning of 2003.

Prior to leaving IBM he was a practising IT architect in IBM Global Services and later the IBM Software Business, specialising in internet and e-business infrastructure, and is the author of several technical redbooks. He was also on IBM UK's IT architecture professions board.

In 2004 he led the Information Systems Examinations Board (ISEB) working party which defined the syllabus and examinations for the new Certificate in IT Architecture.

In his local commmunity he is in his fourth term as a Parish Councillor, having first been elected in 1992. During that time he has held a number of posts, including that of chairman for 5 years. He is currently the vice-chairman and holds the Planning portfolio. He also serves as webmaster and is proud that, back in 1995, the parish was one of the very first to establish its own website. He is also aware that its design is now rather dated and it is overdue for a facelift.
 
BCS Background Adrian joined the BCS in 1997 under the scheme for senior professional entry. He has been an active member of the Oxfordshire Branch committee since 2002, branch webmaster since May 2003, and is a keen member of the BOG.

He played a key role in organising the 2002/3 Schools Website Competition and chaired the branch 2004/5 Schools Website Competition committee.

He is particularly keen to encourage productive use of online collaboration tools within the BCS. To this end he is an active member of several Yahoo! Groups and the Specialist Groups' SGnet. He set up an experimental wiki for the branch, and recently served on the Streaming Media Working Party commissioned by the Member Services Board.

He was invited to sit on the BCS Knowledge Services Board in November 2003 and elected a Fellow of the Society in October 2004.

In January 2005 he took on the role of Forum Manager for the BCS Engineering and Technology Forum and its Strategic Panel. 

Trevor Cockram

Dr Trevor Cockram PhD, C Eng, BSc, MIEE, MSaRS is a principal consultant with Praxis High Integrity Systems Ltd. He is a Chartered Engineer with over 25 years experience in Aerospace, Nuclear and Defence during which he has specialised in safety, quality and team leading. He has experience in the application of safety methods to programmable electronic devices and software in safety critical and safety related embedded systems.

He is also an experienced independent safety auditor. He is the technical authority for the development of electronic safety cases within Praxis High Integrity Systems, which are being employed on a number of projects. His research interests include the application of Bayesian Belief Networks in supporting safety cases.

Carl Sandom

Dr. Carl Sandom is an independent consultant with iSys Integrity (www.iSys-Integrity.com), specialising in system and software safety assurance, including human factors assessments, for high-integrity military and civil systems. Prior to consultancy, he spent over 20 years working as a systems and software engineer in the Defence and Aerospace sectors within industry and as a Royal Air Force Officer.

Current safety consultancy roles include Independent Safety Advisor to the NATO Air Command and Control System Management Agency (NACMA), Brussels; Software Project Safety Engineer on the Merlin Capability Sustainment Programme (MCSP) for Westland Helicopters Ltd, UK, and Principal Consultant for the development of the EUROCONTROL Safety Survey Guidelines and associated training courses jointly for The Institute of Air Navigation Services, Luxembourg.

Carl has published and presented numerous system safety and human factors papers and was editor of the successful book ‘Human Factors for Engineers’ published by IEE in 2005. Carl is both a Chartered Engineer and a Registered Member of the Ergonomics Society.

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