David De Roure

David De Roure is Professor of e-Research at the University of Oxford and Academic Director of both the Digital Scholarship initiative and the Laboratory for AI Security Research. He is also an Honorary Research Professor at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), where he serves as Technical Director of the Centre for Practice & Research in Science & Music (PRiSM). His work bridges computer science, digital humanities, cybersecurity, and music through his distinctive interdisciplinary approach.

De Roure received his PhD in 1990 supervised by David W Barron and Peter Henderson, with research in Lisp and distributed systems. Prior to joining Oxford in 2010, he was Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton and Director of the Centre for Pervasive Computing in the Environment. His career spans multiple institutions and research domains, reflecting his commitment to interdisciplinary work.

De Roure's research focuses on new methods of digital scholarship, innovation in knowledge infrastructure, cybersecurity, and computational approaches to music. His work uniquely combines humanities (digital musicology), social sciences (social machines and web science), engineering (Internet of Things), and computer science (distributed systems, AI). A key theme is empowering human creativity through technology rather than replacing humans with AI. He emphasizes co-creation between humans and machines, particularly in music composition where he explores how algorithms can generate fragments for human assembly.

His recent publications reveal a strong focus on AI security in IoT systems, digital scholarship methods, and the intersection of music with computational approaches. There's a clear trajectory from foundational work in social machines and web science toward current applications in cybersecurity and music-AI co-creation. His publications consistently bridge technical domains with humanistic inquiry, demonstrating his commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship that addresses real-world challenges.

• Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS)
• Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (FIMA)
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA)
• Chartered IT Professional (CITP)
• Turing Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute (2018-2024)

De Roure has co-founded three major interdisciplinary initiatives: PETRAS National Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity (the world's largest socio-technical research center focused on IoT security), the Software Sustainability Institute (dedicated to improving research software), and PRiSM at RNCM. He was Director of the Oxford e-Research Centre from 2012-17 and has led numerous research projects including SOCIAM (The Theory and Practice of Social Machines), FAST (Fusing Audio and Semantic Technologies), and Transforming Musicology. The Laboratory for AI Security Research, which he directs, took its first PhD students in 2024.

At Oxford, De Roure chairs the Digital Research Cluster at Wolfson College and oversees the Laboratory for AI Security Research. The PRiSM team at RNCM has produced numerous musical works and performances, including six premieres in New York in 2024. He has been involved in designing gesture recognition software used in many performances and has collaborated on public engagement projects including the Science Together project which released a Hip Hop album. His current work includes exploring Chladni Plates for new musical instrument design and developing algorithmically enhanced instruments.