Alumni reunion turns back clock

FOURTEEN alumni from around the world met again in October after 25 years, when the department of computing welcomed its first intake of undergraduates; a total of 22 students graduated in 1976.

Professor Jeff Kramer, left, talks to alumni Martin Wood and Nicky Kibble

Alumni, some from Canada, the USA and Geneva, included Jeff Barber, Bob Bates, Curt Choo-Kang, Paddy Gormley, Mike Goss, Steve Hoyle and Di Johnson, now Renselar.

Stuart McRae, George Mozdzynski, Nicky Ridgwell, now Kibble, Siv Sivzattian, Alan Watthey, Michael (Biggles) Wollaston and Martin Wood also attended. More recent alumni included Selina Man (1999), Richard Apoolingam (1999) and Andrew Tseng (1996).

Curt Choo-Kang provided photographs of a 1976 football match between staff and students, and Stuart McRae brought the G18 book, containing comments, pictures and poems. G18 refers to the first lecture room in RSM.

Professor Jeff Kramer, head of department, compared the department then and now and discovered all alumni were still working in computing, although Paddy Gormley would prefer to make a living as a playwright and poet.

Professor Guang-Zhong Yang, director of the Royal Society/Wolfson Foundation medical image computing laboratory, spoke about bioinformatics and remote controlled heart surgery; Professor John Darlington about high performance computing, the e-Science initiative and grid computing; and Professor Berc Rustem about his work on prediction and economic modelling.