Martyn Thomas

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

FREng Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) is an award and Scholarship, fellowship for engineers who are recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering as being the best and brightest engineers, inventors and technologists in the UK a ...

FIET

FRSA The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

(born 1948) is a British independent consultant and software engineer.

Overview

Martyn Thomas founded the software engineering company

Praxis Praxis may refer to: Philosophy and religion * Praxis (process), the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practised, embodied, or realised * Praxis model, a way of doing theology * Praxis (Byzantine Rite), the practice of fai ...

in 1983, based in Bath, southern England. He has a special interest in

safety-critical system A safety-critical system (SCS) or life-critical system is a system whose failure or malfunction may result in one (or more) of the following outcomes: * death or serious injury to people * loss or severe damage to equipment/property * environme ...

s and other high integrity applications. He has acted as an

expert witness An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as ...

involving complex software engineering issues. Thomas was born in

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

, southern England. He studied

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, graduating in 1969, when he started working in the field of computing. Between 1969 and 1983, he was employed at universities in London and the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, at STC working on telecommunications software, and at the South West Universities Regional Computer Centre in Bath. In 1983, Thomas founded Praxis with David Bean, where he encouraged the use of

formal methods In computer science, formal methods are mathematically rigorous techniques for the specification, development, and verification of software and hardware systems. The use of formal methods for software and hardware design is motivated by the expec ...

within the company for

software development Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...

. In 1986, Praxis became the first independent systems house to achieve BS 5750 (later ISO 9001) certification for all its activities. Praxis became internationally recognised as a leader in the use of rigorous software engineering, including formal methods, and grew to around 200 staff. In December 1992, Praxis was sold to

Deloitte and Touche Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is an international professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of profession ...

, an international firm of accountants and management consultants, and Martyn became a Deloitte Consulting international partner whilst remaining chairman and, later, managing director of Praxis. He left Deloitte Consulting in 1997. He is currently director of Martyn Thomas Associates Limited and a visiting professor at the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

, and a Fellow and Emeritus Professor at

Gresham College Gresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in Central London, England. It does not enroll students or award degrees. It was founded in 1596 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham, and hosts ove ...

. He lives in London.

Current career

Fellow, Emeritus Professor and member of Council.

,
Visiting Professor of Software Engineering at

Aberystwyth University , mottoeng = A world without knowledge is no world at all , established = 1872 (as ''The University College of Wales'') , former_names = University of Wales, Aberystwyth , type = Public , endowment = ...

, UK,
Fellow at

The Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senior ...

,
Member at UK Computing Research Committee,
Owner, Principal Consultant and Expert Witness at MTAL.,

Past career

Non-executive director of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE),

IT Livery Company Professor of Information Technology The IT Livery Company Professor of Information Technology at Gresham College in London, gives free educational lectures to the general public. The college was founded for this purpose in 1597, when it appointed seven professors; this has since incr ...

at Gresham College,
Member of Advisory Council at Foundation for Information Policy Research,
Non-executive Director of the Serious Organised Crime Agency,
Non-executive Director of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education,
Fellow at British Computer Society,
Chair, Executive Board at DEPLOY Project,
Member, "Sufficient Evidence" study at National Academies / CSTB,
Chair, Steering Committee at DIRC,
Member of Council at EPSRC,
Member of Advisory Group at OST Foresight programmes,
Partner at

Deloitte Consulting Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is an international professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of profession ...

,
Founder/Chairman/managing director at Praxis,
Chairman at Praxis Critical Systems,
Deputy Director at SWURCC,
Software Engineer at STC.

Honors and awards

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

, CBE,

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senior ...

,
Honorary DSc (Hull),
Honorary DSc (Edinburgh),
Honorary DSc (City),
Honorary DSc (Bath), Dr of Engineering,
IEE Achievement Medal, Computing and Control,
Who's Who.

References

External links

Martyn Thomas Associates Limited website

IT Livery Professor, Gresham College
*
Martyn Thomas biography
from the

IET __NOTOC__ IET can refer to: Organizations * Institute of Educational Technology, part of the Open University * Institution of Engineering and Technology, a UK-based professional engineering institution ** Institute of Engineers and Technicians, wh ...

Oxford University Computing Laboratory home page
*
Dr Thomas Oration, University of Bath
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Martyn 1948 births Living people People from Salisbury Alumni of University College London British software engineers Formal methods people People in information technology British corporate directors Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the British Computer Society Fellows of the Institution of Engineering and Technology Members of the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford People from Bath, Somerset