Quite A Week

Quite A Week

Well, it’s the end of the semester for our teaching, and things are winding down a bit. But it’s been a busier week than normal. On Tuesday, I was off to Excel London to give an invited talk on Post Quantum Cryptography at Black Hat Europe Executive Summit:

Basically, it gave me a good opportunity to do a Crypto 101 with senior executives, and to (hopefully) highlight the risks that companies face with the advent of quantum computers. Like it or not, our world of digital trust is built on public key encryption — and quantum computers could cause the whole of the Internet to become untrusted. And, so, the planning for the migration towards post-quantum robust methods needs to be started now. Overall, Black Hat is mainly focused on industry, so, as an academic, I feel privileged to be invited to outline future risks (and give a bit of academic coverage of a topic).

Then, on Thursday, I was off to Liverpool for the Times Higher Education Awards 2023 - the ‘Oscars of higher education’. In the afternoon, I heard that one of our forthcoming spin-outs (Lasting Asset) had won the “People’s Choice Award” at the Santander X awards in London:

And then in the evening, I picked up the Most Innovative Teacher of the Year award:

To stand on the stage with the amazing Sandi Toksvig — who has done so much for gender equality — is something that I will never forget.

Overall, because of my commitment to research, I could have dropped virtually all of my teaching several years ago. But, it is the teaching part of my role that is the most interesting and which allows me to take the things I learn in research and bring them into my teaching. I want to lead in my area — both from a teaching and a research point-of-view — as the two should go together.

And, this has been a great semester for me. I have had the privilege to teach some great students, and, as a teacher, we develop and refocus every year. Overall, some things work, and other things don’t quite work. But, over the past year, most things have worked, and where it has been fun to teach the subjects that I love.

What many will miss, is the focus on learning my subject areas in such depth that I really understand virtually every aspect of the topics I teach. This is not only from a knowledge point-of-view but to understand the previous research in my area. And, too, I’ve always tried to make sure that students can learn in the way that best fits them, so the material I’ve created tries to find a route for this learning. At its core, though, is the classroom lecture and the lab environment, and everything just tries to mimic these environments.

To be a teacher and a researcher at the same time is a complete privilege. My advice to any Early Career Researcher is to teach and do research into things that you are passionate about, and which provide you with a route to endless learning. And, when you do learn, pass that knowledge on to your students, and let them see the beauty and art of the binding of theory with practice.

Along with this, I have a core belief that educational material should be accessible no matter where you are in the world, and in whatever way you want to access it. For me, these platforms are mainly GitHub and YouTube, and which move academic content from behind firewalls, and into spaces that can be used by all.

And, so, I’m lucky that the content which I produced for each module has scaled across the world and is used by millions of people every year. But, it is still the focus on every single class and every single student who takes our modules that I care most about. Every year you have to build a new respect in your academic content, and you can never coast on your previous teaching.

My vision was always to engage students in whichever way that worked for them, and it has been my mission to support for the students that we teach. If others find it useful, that’s a bonus.

Overall, I’m looking forward to teaching my favouriate module in the whole year — Applied Cryptography and Trust — in Semester 2. And, I will continue to innovate in both research and teaching — as innovation can be the spark that ignites the fire.

So, go be a great teacher or mentor to others, and give back what others have given to you!