Professor David Duce studied chemistry at Nottingham University and did his doctorate there in Vibrational Spectroscopy. He had to programme doing his PhD and then chose to follow the path lo computing as it exciting challenges and better prospects than chemistry which was in one of its periodic slumps. He joined the Atlas Computer Laboratory and wrote software developing utilities for an ICL 1906A.
The Science Research Council’s Engineering Board wanted to procure a variety of computers for an Interactive Computing Facility to support engineering research. He helped developed benchmarks to test the power of potential multi-user mini-computers and co-published the work. He was involved in developing an interactive graphics package, FINGS, for Prime 400 and GEC (UK) 4070 systems. Working with Professor R W Witty he developed a structured Fortran which was implemented and published. He has worked with international bodies on graphics standardisation.
By 1990 he was Head of the Systems Engineering Division of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory responsible for the research of a group of 18 into the fields of knowledge and software engineering. He gained a personal promotion which allowed him to drop administrative work and focus on research into formal methods, computer graphics, interactive systems, and the development of more computer graphics standards. He has been involved in assessing the research of others in RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) panels. Oxford Brookes University was his base before retirement where he acted as head of department as well as research and teaching.
Professor Duce was interviewed by Richard Sharpe for Archives of IT and the full interview will be published next month.
Dr David Duce on AI
Dr David Duce on Engineering
