Distinguished Engineer and Global head of security research, BT Group
Ben leads the global cyber security research programme in BT. He is responsible for setting direction and strategy for security research, identifying innovation opportunities and leading a strong international team of researchers to develop new capabilities in collaboration with industrial and academic partners.
Ben is a BT distinguished engineer with 30 years’ experience in both academia and industry. His previous roles included leading the IT research centre and head of business intelligence & customer analytics research at BT Group Chief Technology Office. He holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering, an MSc in Control Engineering, a PhD in Intelligent Control Systems from Manchester University and an Exec. MBA from Imperial College, London. Having held research fellowship and lectureship posts in several universities, he joined BT in 1995 to lead a research programme to develop and exploit novel Artificial Intelligence technology to support next generation IT systems. Since then he has held senior, principal, chief research scientist posts at BT’s global R&D headquarters in Adastral Park, Ipswich where he is currently based.
He has edited two books and published more than 100 scientific articles on novel application of AI. He is an inventor of 50 patent applications, has won 4 BCS and an IET gold medals for IT innovation, holds visiting professorship positions at the Universities of Bristol, Suffolk and Bournemouth. Ben is a current fellow of Institute of Telecom Engineers (FITP) and Institute of Engineering and Technology (FIET) and is on the board of IoT Security Foundation. His current research interests include the application Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Cyber security to protect networks as a critical national infrastructure. His current projects include Future home security, Automated detection and response for Cyber security, Crypto-agility including Post quantum crypto, and continuous authentication.
