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Staff Profile

Dr Nigel Thomas

Reader in Performance Engineering

  • Telephone: +44 191 208 8182
  • Address: Room 3.038,
    School of Computing,
    Urban Sciences Building,
    1 Science Square,
    University of Newcastle upon Tyne,
    Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
    United Kingdom
Background

Introduction

I am Associate Dean for Postgraduate Research in the SAgE Faculty.

I joined the School of Computing Science in January 2004 from the University of Durham, where I had been a lecturer since 1998. I was promoted to reader in 2009. My research interests lie in scalable performance analysis for security using queueing theory, stochastic process algebra and simulation. See my Google Scholar Citations and ResearchGate pages.

I was awarded a PhD in 1997 and an MSc in 1991, both from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. I have previously held a number of positions of responsibility within the School, including Deputy Head of School, Director of Teaching and Director of Postgraduate Studies. 

I am always interested in further self-financed international research students. Some research topics of interest are listed below, please contact me for further information.


1: Performance analysis of secure systems.

Security measures impose a performance overhead, as more work needs to be done in order to perform operations such as authentication, encryption and recording transactions. Understanding this overhead is vital in order to make intelligent choices in the design of secure systems. Of particular novel interest is the performance effect of attacks against the system. Choosing the right management policy (e.g. encryption key management) and a good protocol enables the system to maintain an acceptable performance even when under attack.

2: Wireless network performance and security .

Wireless networks are used for a wide range of applications in a wide range of operating scenarios. Clearly it is infeasible to expect that a given network protocol will perform well in all situations, as protocol are typically designed to perform well in respect to a limited set of performance metrics under a limited set of operating conditions. It is therefore necessary to understand the limitations of such protocols in terms of factors such as fairness and energy, when the network topology is sub-optimal or where nodes are misbehaving, for example when compromised due to infection by a virus or a fault, or subject to a denial of service attack.

3: Reliability and security in VANETs

VANETs are a specific form of wireless network used for vehicle to vehicle communications. VANETs are used for numerous applications, including platooning (vehicle convoys) and safety (road traffic) information. Attacks against these applications have safety implications for the vehicles involved and so maintaining performance in the presence of attack and misbehaviour is of critical importance.



Publications