A/Prof. Frans Henskens

Biography

I commenced as an academic at the age of 40. After establishing, with John Rosenberg, the very successful and productive Persistent Systems Research Group at the University of Sydney, I left the group in 1995 to return to Newcastle for family reasons. I was then employed by the School of Management, UoN, on a series of short teaching contracts, until being appointed to a full-time position with FEBE in mid 1998. I established inter-disciplinary collaboration with groups in UoN (Mental Health) and QUT (Bioinformatics), achieving substantial results including an international patent. From 2002 I also became heavily involved in University administration as HoD and Assistant Dean, but also resumed work on my previous area of expertise, forming the Distributed Systems Research Group which I lead. This work recommenced in the context of continued collaboration with my colleagues in Mental Health Studies, and in Health Behaviour, and is creating infrastructure by which our research is able to flourish. Additionally, I am advancing the techniques and ideas on which I commenced work in the early 1990s (and on which I supervised Ph.D students who graduated in 1995 (X2), 1996, 1997, and 2005 respectively), applying them to grid and Internet-based distribution. In 2007, two new Ph.D students commenced working with me on these techniques: one "A Framework to Support Long-Running Web Service Transaction" - is nearing completion; the other in "Data Management and Query Processing for Semistructured and Structured Databases" - graduated PhD in 2011;. I also, in mid-2005, took over supervision of several Ph.D students who had commenced their studies with other supervisors. The first of these students worked on "Advances in Cluster Editing: Linear FPT Kernels and Comparative Implementations" - graduated PhD in 2010; the second is nearing completion on "A Software Engineering Process for BOI Multiagent Systems". In 2008 - 2010 several new postgraduate students joined the group to work on: "A Framework for Clinical Reasoning, Knowledge Acquisition, Retrieval and Synthesis in Psychiatry"; "Component-based Runtime Environment for Internet Applications"; "The Effect of Learning Style Based Educational Intervention on Self-Regulated Learning and Academic Performance in Computer Science Education"; "IT-Enabled Growth in Developing Countries" respectively.

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Newcastle, 1992
• Diploma of Computer Science, University of Newcastle
• Diploma in Education, University of Newcastle
• Bachelor of Mathematics, University of Newcastle, 1975

Research

Research keywords

• Bioinformatics
• Computer Networks
• Distributed Operating Systems
• Grid Computing
• Persistent Systems
• Programming Languages

Research expertise

Research centres on engineering of flexible software systems, bioinformatics, operating systems and computer forensics, distributed and grid computing, resilience and availability in database systems, and use of persistent stores for bulk data storage and manipulation.

Collaboration

Research interests centre on: engineering of flexible (component-based) software systems; the role of distributed systems in health behaviour; distributed systems to support understanding & management of schizophrenia; bioinformatics; operating systems and computer forensics; distributed and grid computing; resilience and availability in database systems; and use of persistent stores and matching programming languages for bulk data storage and manipulation.

Languages

• English

Fields of Research

Centres and Groups

Centre

• Hunter Medical Research Institute
• PRC - Priority Research Centre for Health Behaviour

Group

• Hunter Medical Research Institute - Public Health

Memberships

Body relevant to professional practice.

• Member - Australian College of Educators

Awards

Recognition.

Administrative

Administrative expertise

Head, Discipline of Computer Science & Software Engineering; Deputy Head, School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science; Assistant Dean (IT), Faculty of Engineering & Built Environment; Founder & Head, Distributed Computing Research Group.

Teaching

Teaching keywords

• Computer Networks
• Computer Programming
• Concurrent Programming
• Data Structures & Algorithms
• Distributed Computing
• Operating Systems

Teaching expertise

2007 teaching recognised by receiving both the University of Newcastle Vice Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence and the Australian College of Educators N.S.W. Quality Teaching Award.