Alan has been Professor of Information Management at the University of Central Lancashire since 1994.
He graduated from The Queen's College, Oxford in 1984 in Chemistry.
His PhD, probably the first to be awarded by the University of Central
Lancashire after gaining its charter in 1992, was in problem solving
methodology using knowledge based systems and formed the basis of his
first book The Integration of Expert Systems Into Mainstream Software.
After nearly five years at the IT Institute at the University of Salford,
he returned to Preston, and in 1998 joined the newly formed Lancashire
School of Health and Postgraduate Medicine. In 2008, the School was
amalgamated and expanded to form the School of Public Health and Clinical Sciences.
He has also held part time positions at the University of Oxford PGMET, RMIT in Australia, and in 2002 was awarded Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Cluj Napoca.
Doctor Honoris Causa (Cluj), PhD Computing Science, MA (Oxon) Chemistry
Fellow British Computer Society,
Chartered IT professional,
Fellow Academy of Higher Education
Alan has over 100 academic publications including over 30 peer reviewed articles. He has recently returned from a project working with colleague John
Howard for the Czech Government, He also has ongoing work in Ontario
Canada, and has just been successful in bidding with Mark Cutter for
the AHEAD-EU project on widening access for disabled students, with
partners in Germany and Sweden.
Alan is the author of quite a lot of books, even more academic
articles, and has presented in conferences in lots of nice places. He
was recently spotted on TV on Sky News where his opinion piece on the
politicisation of health care was shown across Europe on Sept 16th 2008