Brian is currently leader of the Open Data Systems Group, within Data Division.

Brian leads a team with expertise in providing data infrastructure to support

open scientific research, working  on a range of research, development and production

projects, concentrating on advance management, engineering, curation and

analysis of scientific data. He leads the DAFNI project, developing an integrated data and modelling

platform for research into National Infrastructure.  He is also

Co-Investigator and Technical Lead on the EPSRC Physical Science Data-Science

Service, providing access to data resources for UK researchers.

Brian has 30 years of experience of R&D in a wide range of aspects of computer science and

information technology, particularly as it applies to the management, preservation and

analysis of scientific data and access to compute resources. He has worked in areas such

as: formal methods for software engineering and data modelling; web technology, including

developing the SKOS recommendation within the W3C; grid and distributed systems,

including security; scientific data management, data and software preservation. He has

working in close collaboration with STFC supported facilities (DLS, ISIS, CLF), where he played

a leading role in the design and deployment of the ICAT experimental data catalogue.

Brian has also been engaged in in European programmes, including the European Open Science

Cloud, building a common data infrastructure for European Research. He was part of the

coordination team of the EOSC-Pilot project, has a leading role in a number of other

EOSC projects, including FREYA, FAIRsFAIR and most recently ExPaNDS, where he is

leading a work package on Enabling FAIR data for national photon and neutron facilities.

Brian has a PhD in Computing Science from the University of Glasgow (1996), exploring theorem proving systems using

equational reasoning.  Brian held a part-time lectureship at Oxford Brookes University between 2002-2015,

teaching XML and Semantic Web on MSc on Web technologies.. He was deputy manager of the W3C Office for the

UK and Ireland (2001-2010). He has been a Fellow of the British Computer Society since 2015.​