Jonathan Bowen
Categories: 1956 births | British academics | British computer scientists | British professors | Computer science professors | Natives of Oxfordshire | London South Bank University | Fellows of the British Computer Society | Formal methods people | Fellows of the Royal Society of Arts | Freemen of the City of London | Old Dragons | Old Bryanstonians | Former students of University College, Oxford
Jonathan P. Bowen FBCS FRSA (born 1956) is a British computer scientist and is Professor of Computing at London South Bank University where he heads the Centre for Applied Formal Methods in the Institute for Computing Research.
Bowen was born in Oxford and educated at the Dragon School, Bryanston School and University College, Oxford. He holds an MA degree in Engineering Science from Oxford University. His interests include formal methods, safety-critical systems, the Z notation, provably correct systems, rapid prototyping using logic programming, decompilation, hardware compilation, hardware/software codesign, the history of computing and online museums.
In 1994, Bowen founded the Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp), an online museums directory supported by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). In the same year he also started the Virtual Museum of Computing, one of the earliest virtual museums. In 2002 he founded Museophile Limited to help museums, especially online.
Since the 1970s, Bowen has been involved with the field of computing and electronic engineering in both industry (including Oxford Instruments, Marconi Instruments, Logica and Silicon Graphics) and academia. Between 1979 and 1984 he worked at Imperial College, London as a research assistant, latterly in the interdepartmental Wolfson Microprocessor Laboratory. He was then a senior researcher at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory Programming Research Group where he worked under the guidance of C. A. R. Hoare, FRS. From 1995 to 2000, Bowen was a lecturer at the Department of Computer Science, The University of Reading, where he led the Formal Methods and Software Engineering Group.
Bowen has been Chair of the Z User Group for many years. During 2001 he received the Freedom of The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, the 100th Livery Company in the City of London. In 2002, Bowen was elected Chair of the British Computer Society FACS Specialist Group on Formal Aspects of Computing Science and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 2004 he became a Fellow of the British Computer Society.
See also
- Humphry Bowen – father
- Edmund Bowen – grandfather