Jane Hillston is computer scientist who combines formal languages and mathematical models to study the behaviour of dynamic systems. Her original work focused on performance analysis of computer and communication systems, seeking to predict their use of resources and responsiveness to users. Her initial work on this topic, in her PhD dissertation, was awarded the BCS/CPHC Distinguished Dissertation Award in 1995. A key focus of her work is support for probabilistic and quantitative verification techniques, and her work on efficient analysis techniques led to the Needham Award in 2005.
Over the years the modelling languages that she designs have been adopted and adapted to a number of application domains ranging from adaptive transport systems to biochemical processes within cells. She has also worked on developing formal approaches to fluid approximations of discrete models and formal languages for machine learning.
Jane is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Member of Academia Europaea. She has been a strong advocate for Women in Computing and her work was recognised by a Suffrage Science Award in 2018.
Professional position
- Professor and Head of School, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Subject groups
- Computer sciences
Programming languages and verification
