Professor Peter Buneman MBE FRS

Peter Buneman is an eminent computer scientist who specialises in databases. He has made key advancements in how data is collected and organised, including on the Internet. One example is his collaboration with biologists to improve genomic databases, which collect and analyse DNA sequences from different organisms.

Peter works theoretically as well as practically. His recent work is in pioneering the field of web-like data, which aims to improve the structure of data found in websites. He is the co-author of the first textbook about the subject. Furthermore, alongside colleagues, he built an archiving system for scientific databases.

In 2013, he was appointed MBE for services to data systems and computing. He has published over 100 papers in the field. Peter is currently Professor at the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, where he built the Database Group. He is the son of physicist Oscar Buneman, who assisted in the development of the radar during the Second World War.

Subject groups

  • Computer sciences

    Computer science (excl engineering aspects), Databases, Programming languages and verification

  • Engineering

    Communications incl information theory, Computer engineering (including software)

  • Organismal biology, evolution and ecology

    Evolution, Taxonomy and systematics

Professor Peter Buneman MBE FRS
Elected 2009