Roger Needham Lecture

This prestigious lecture is presented by the winner of the Roger Needham Award.

Who receives the award?

The award was established in memory of Professor Roger Needham (1935-2003) and is made annually for a distinguished research contribution in computer science by a UK based researcher who has completed up to 10 years of post-doctoral research.

2020 Roger Needham Lecture

Title to be announced

Winner of the 2019 Roger Needham Award, Dr Cristian Cadar from Imperial College London, will be speaking at the 2020 Roger Needham lecture.

Date: 11 June 2020
Venue: The Royal Society, London

Past lectures

The Roger Needham lectures shine a light on the fundamental research taking place in the UK and what it means for the industry.

Prof Alexandra Silva

Modelling and Verification using Automata Learning.

More about the 2019 lecture

Dr Alastair Donaldson

Many-core programming: How to go really fast without crashing.

More about the 2017 lecture

Dr Sharon Goldwater

Language learning in humans and machines: making connections to make progress

More about the 2016 lecture

Prof Niloy Mitra

Linking form and function, computationally.

More about the 2015 lecture

Nominate for next year's award

Do you know someone who's been involved in ground-breaking research in the field of computer science?

Check out the criteria and how to nominate

About Roger Needham

Roger Needham pioneered the technique of protecting passwords using a one-way hash function. Among his theoretical contributions is the development of the Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic. The Needham-Schroeder security protocol forms the basis of the Kerberos authentication and key-exchange system, and he also co-designed the TEA and XTEA encryption algorithms.

Professor Needham joined Cambridge's Computer Laboratory (then called the Mathematical Laboratory) in 1962, becoming its head in 1980. He was made a professor in 1981 and remained with the laboratory until his retirement in 1995.