Blockchain technology has brought about one of the most exciting and profound technological shifts of our time. It is redefining the way we do commerce, how we interact with government, and how we verify authenticity and provenance of everything from financial assets to food and precious materials.
Swansea Blockchain Lab is a dedicated research group based at Swansea University’s Computational Foundry, and supported by CHERISH Digital Economy Research Centre.
The Lab is a dedicated group of researchers and business professionals based at Swansea University’s Computational Foundry, with combinative expertise across computational science and mathematics.
Our mission is to
• understand the fundamental scientific underpinnings of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, and to drive engagement with industry and the wider blockchain community.
• promote a culture of shared knowledge and co-creation of blockchain research and development;
• work collaboratively with our partners to develop transformative innovations that address societal and economic challenges across government, industry and third sector.
Our lab
Our Lab is represented by a team of academics and business development personnel. Core expertise includes:
• Mathematical Logic
• Logic in Computer Science
• Computational Complexity Theory
• Smart Contracts
• Formal Methods
• Cyber Trust
• Proof Theory
• Type Theory
• Interactive Proof Theory
• Cryptocurrencies (Modelling and Verification)
We have a range of funding programmes that enable engagement between our researchers and partners, and that support the development of prototype blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. Please contact us for more information.
Arnold Beckmann
Arnold is Professor for Computer Science, and Head of Computer Science at Swansea University. He is co-PI of Swansea University's £31m Computational Foundry flagship project, which aims at interdisciplinary research centred around core Swansea Computer Science research areas including Human-Computer-Interaction, Data Science and Fundamentals of Computing, to create a beacon for computing in Wales and beyond.
Arnold conducts research in fundamentals of Computer Science, based on Mathematical Logic and Theoretical Computer Science, and has developed a profile for transferring his expertise to applications via the Computational Foundry context and other interdisciplinary opportunities at Swansea University. Arnold is founding member of the Swansea blockchain Lab, and involved in several projects that explore the application of blockchain technology to real world problems.
Contact: a.beckmann@swansea.ac.uk
Jay Doyle
Jay is Research Engagement Officer at Swansea University's Digital Economy Centre, and co-founder of the Lab. With a background in asset investigation and recovery in the insolvency profession, Jay is keen to explore the role of blockchain and digital ledger technology in digital asset recovery, and the potential of decentralised solutions to social innovation challenges. Jay is our main point of contact for research and business development opportunities with the Lab.
Contact: j.c.doyle@swansea.ac.uk
Anton Setzer
Anton is Reader in Computer Science, Swansea University. He is a specialist in the area of proof theory, type theory and interactive proof theory. He has been supervising since September 2013 several student projects in the area of bitcoins, mainly focusing on modelling and verification of bitcoins in the theorem prover Agda. An advanced version of this work has been presented at TYPES 2017 in Budapest.
Contact: a.g.setzer@swansea.ac.uk
Alexander J. M. Milne
Alex received his degree in computer science from Swansea University, Wales, UK in 2018. Following his degree, he worked at Swansea University on a CHERISH- DE funded project in collaboration with Oyster Bay Systems. This project was to implement a prototype blockchain system for tracking a specific simple asset. He is currently a student at Swansea University doing a KESS II funded masters by research on blockchain where he has built a generic framework for tracking assets and storing their data securely on the blockchain. His research interests are in the field of Blockchain Technologies, security and protocols, and logic.
Contact: A.J.M.Milne@Swansea.ac.uk
Pardeep Kumar
Pardeep is a Lecturer in Computer Science at Swansea University. He is leading the SwANSEC research team, specializing in network security protocols for distributed networks, systems and communications. In particular, Pardeep has expertise in designing and implementing lightweight security and privacy mechanisms for low-powered network, cyber physical network, blockchain, 5G network, etc.
Contact: pardeep.kumar@swansea.ac.uk
Jean Jose Razafindrakoto
Jean is Academic Tutor in Computer Science at Swansea University. His research is within the intersection between Mathematical Logic and Computational Complexity Theory. Jean's research interests in blockchain technologies are in the areas of smart contracts security and the application of formal methods around smart contracts.
Contact: j.j.razafindrakoto@swansea.ac.uk
Phillip James
Phil is a Lecturer in Computer Science at Swansea University, specialising in formal methods and model driven engineering. In particular, Phil has expertise in modelling and formally proving correctness of systems with respect to safety and security. Phil is currently researching into the use of Blockchain as a means to provide provenance in legal cases.
Contact p.d.james@swansea.ac.uk
Matheus Torquato
Matheus is a project assistant at ASTUTE 2020 (Advanced Sustainable Manufacturing Technologies), an operation led by Swansea University to support industrial Research, Development and Innovation. He has been involved with research in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, human-computer interaction, computer vision and embedded devices.
From a computer engineering background, Matheus is currently interested in applying ideas within the intersection between computer science and electrical/industrial engineering to industries, such as applying recurrent neural networks in order to identify the remaining useful life of mechanical components for predictive maintenance. Additionally, he is keen on exploring the different ways which Blockchain technology can be applied to business, and how this technology will shape the second era of the Internet.
Contact: m.f.torquato@swansea.ac.uk
Dion Curry
Dion is a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy in the Department of Political and Cultural Studies. His research focusses on political governance, examining how both citizen and government perceptions of political trust and legitimacy shape and are shaped by different tools and approaches to governance. He is also co-founder of the Initiative for Managing Policymaker-Academic Cooperation and Knowledge Transfer (IMPACKT), which aims to more closely connect academic research with public policy, business and the third sector.
Dion has contributed to numerous Welsh, UK and EU government consultations and evaluations on topics such as higher education, low-carbon energy and Brexit.
He is interested in examining how disruptive technologies and processes can have a positive or negative impact on political governance, and is keen to explore how blockchain can be used to improve democratic engagement and transparency in governance.
