Robert Watson (computer scientist)

Robert Watson
Robert Watson in 2008
Born	3 May 1977 Harrow, London
Residence	United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Fields	Computer security[1] Operating systems[2][3] Network stacks Programming languages Computer architecture[4][5]
Institutions	Cambridge Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge St John's College, Cambridge
Alma mater	Carnegie Mellon University Wolfson College, Cambridge
Thesis	New approaches to operating system security extensibility (2011)
Doctoral advisor	Ross Anderson
Known for	contributions to FreeBSD, TrustedBSD, OpenBSM
Website www.watson.org/~robert www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnw24 people.freebsd.org/~rwatson

Robert Nicholas Maxwell Watson (born 3 May 1977) is a FreeBSD developer, and founder of the TrustedBSD Project.^[6] He is currently employed as a University Lecturer in Systems, Security, and Architecture in the Security Research Group at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory.^{[7][8][9][10]}

Education

Watson graduated in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University and has attained a PhD from University of Cambridge. As well as Cambridge, he has worked at the National Institutes of Health, Carnegie Mellon University, Trusted Information Systems, Network Associates, McAfee, and SPARTA. He obtained a PhD in computer security^[11] from the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, supervised by Ross Anderson and sponsored by Google.^[11]

Research

Watson's work has been supported by DARPA, Apple Computer, the Navy, and other U.S. government agencies. His main research interests are network security and operating system security. His main open source software contributions include his work in developing the multi-threaded and multi-processor FreeBSD network stack, the TrustedBSD project, and OpenBSM. His writing has been featured in forums such as ACM's Queue Magazine,^[12] the USENIX Annual Technical Conference, BSDCon, and a Slashdot interview.^[13] He was also a FreeBSD Core Team member from 2000–2012.^[14] Watson is coauthor of the standard textbook The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System (2nd ed., 2015) by Marshall Kirk McKusick.^[15]

References

1. Murphy, S.; Lewis, E.; Puga, R.; Watson, R.; Yee, R. (2001). "Strong security for active networks". 2001 IEEE Open Architectures and Network Programming Proceedings. OPENARCH 2001 (Cat. No.01EX484). p. 63. doi:10.1109/OPNARC.2001.916839. ISBN 0-7803-7064-3.
2. Watson, R. N. M.; Anderson, J.; Laurie, B.; Kennaway, K. (2012). "A taste of Capsicum". Communications of the ACM. 55 (3): 97. doi:10.1145/2093548.2093572.
3. Watson, R. N. M. (2013). "A decade of OS access-control extensibility". Communications of the ACM. 56 (2): 52. doi:10.1145/2408776.2408792.
4. Robert Watson's publications indexed by Google Scholar
5. Clayton, R.; Murdoch, S. J.; Watson, R. N. M. (2006). "Ignoring the Great Firewall of China". Privacy Enhancing Technologies. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 4258. p. 20. doi:10.1007/11957454_2. ISBN 978-3-540-68790-0.
6. FreeBSD Week: Interview with Robert Watson. OS News, 2002-01-29
7. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/news/2013/05/two-new-lectureships-announced/ Announcement of Lectureship
8. http://dl.acm.org/author_page.cfm?id=81328490800 Robert Watson's ACM author page
9. Robert N. M. Watson at DBLP Bibliography Server
10. List of publications from Microsoft Academic Search
11. Watson, Robert Nicholas Maxwell (2011). New approaches to operating system security extensibility (PDF) (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge.
12. Kamp, P. H.; Watson, R. (2004). "Building Systems to Be Shared, Securely". Queue. 2 (5): 42. doi:10.1145/1016998.1017001.
13. Robert Watson on FreeBSD and TrustedBSD, Slashdot, 2001-01-18
14. FreeBSD Core Team Alumni, 2012-07-20
15. McKusick, Marshall; Neville-Neil, George; Watson, Robert (2014). Design and implementation of the freebsd operating system. (PDF) (2nd ed.). [S.l.]: Addison-Wesley. ISBN 9780321968975. Retrieved 13 May 2015.