Professor Kevin Jones
Profiles

Professor Kevin Jones

Executive Dean

Faculty of Science and Engineering

Kevin can be contacted through arrangement with our Press Office, to speak to the media on these areas of expertise.
  • Cyber security
  • Maritime cyber threats
  • Hardware verification
  • Analogue verification
  • Trustworthiness of complex systems
  • Software development
  • Autonomous systems
  • Hardware design tools

Executive Dean, Faculty of Science and Engineering

Qualifications

PhD University of Manchester
MSc University of Oxford
BSc University of Reading

Professional membership

Fellow of BCS
Fellow of the IET

Fellow of the IMarEST
Senior Member of ACM
Senior member of IEEE
Full member of IISP

Roles on external bodies

Trustee and Board Member, Engineering Council
Member of UKCRC Executive Committee
Member of CPHC 
Member of EPSRC College
Member of BCS Academy Board
Fellowship Assessor for BCS
Assessor for Chartered Engineer, Chartered Scientist, Chartered Information Technology Professional
Member of IAAC/GCHQ Academic Liaison Panel
Chair of University of Plymouth Sustainability Advisory Group
Chair of University of Plymouth Security Advisory Group
Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists
Member of WCIT Security Panel
Member of WCIT Education and Training Panel
Member of the Board of the Plymouth Science Park
Chair, Plymouth STEM Board
Director of University of Plymouth Enterprise Limited
Member of University of Plymouth Board of Govenors
Member of EC/RAEng Ethics Group

Highlights

Securing our ships in the cyber world Securing our ships in the cyber world
 Kevin's research is helping to transform the way global shipping fleets manage cyber security

Maritime Cyber Threats research group Maritime Cyber Threats research group
 Investigating marine cyber threats and researching solutions

Centre for Cyber Security, Communications and Network Research Centre for Cyber Security, Communications and Network Research
 An established inter-disciplinary research group at the University of Plymouth, comprising staff primarily from the School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics but drawing upon staff from across the Institution

Key publications

Tam K & Jones K 2019 'MaCRA: a model-based framework for maritime cyber-risk assessment' Wmu Journal of Maritime Affairs , DOI Open access
View all publications

Teaching interests

SEC301/501 Information Security Management

SEC303HK Intrusion Analysis and Incident Management

Research interests

  • Trustworthiness of Complex Systems
  • Cyber-security
  • Maritime Cyber Threats
  • Hardware verification
  • Analog verification
  • Software development
  • Formal methods
  • CAD tools

Cyber-MAR

Cyber-SHIP

Other research

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1t8_pkEAAAAJ&hl=en

Grants & contracts

Cyber-MAR H2020

Cyber-SHIP Research England

Key publications

Tam K & Jones K 2019 'MaCRA: a model-based framework for maritime cyber-risk assessment' Wmu Journal of Maritime Affairs , DOI Open access

Key publications are highlighted

Journals
Articles
Tam K & Jones K 2019 'MaCRA: a model-based framework for maritime cyber-risk assessment' Wmu Journal of Maritime Affairs , DOI Open access
Tam K & Jones K 2018 'Maritime cybersecurity policy: the scope and impact of evolving technology on international shipping' Journal of Cyber Policy 3, (2) , DOI Open access
Asad HU & Jones KD 2016 'Verifying Inevitability of Oscillation in Ring Oscillators Using the Deductive SOS-QE Approach' IEEE Design & Test 33, (5) 35-43 , DOI Open access
Jones KD, Tam K & Papadaki M 2016 'Threats and Impacts in Maritime Cyber Security' Engineering & Technology Reference Publisher Site Open access
Kim J, Jones KD & Horowitz MA 2010 'Fast, Non-Monte-Carlo Estimation of Transient Performance Variation Due to Device Mismatch' IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers 57, (7) 1746-1755 , DOI
Jones KD, Konrad V & Nickovic D 2009 'Analog property checkers: a DDR2 case study' Formal Methods in System Design 36, (2) 114-130 , DOI
Books
Guttag JV & Horning JJ 2012 Larch: Languages and Tools for Formal Specification. Springer Science & Business Media
Jones CB, Jones KD, Lindsay P & Moore RD 2012 mural: A Formal Development Support System. Springer Science & Business Media
Conference Papers
Pozdniakov K, Alonso E, Stankovic V, Tam K & Jones K 2020 'Smart Security Audit: Reinforcement Learning with a Deep Neural Network Approximator' IEEE Cyber Science Open access
Tam K, Forshaw K & Jones K 2019 'Cyber-SHIP: Developing Next Generation Maritime Cyber Research Capabilities' International Conference on Marine Engineering and Technology Oman , DOI Open access
Tam K & Jones K 2019 'Factors Affecting Cyber Risk in Maritime' 2019 International Conference on Cyber Situational Awareness, Data Analytics And Assessment (Cyber SA) 6-/-0/20196-/-0/2019IEEE , DOI Open access
Tam K & Jones K 2019 'Forensic Readiness within the Maritime Sector' 2019 International Conference on Cyber Situational Awareness, Data Analytics And Assessment (Cyber SA) 6-/-0/20196-/-0/2019IEEE , DOI Open access
Tam K & Jones K 2018 'Cyber-Risk Assessment for Autonomous Ships' Cyber Security Glasgow 6-/-0/20186-/-0/2018IEEE Open access
Asad HU & Jones KD 2015 'Verifying inevitability of phase-locking in a charge pump phase lock loop using sum of squares programming' 52nd Design Automation Conference San Fransico, California 6-/-0/20156-/-0/2015ACM / EDAC / IEEE Publisher Site , DOI
Asad HU & Jones K 2015 'Inevitability of Phase-locking in a Charge Pump Phase Lock Loop using Deductive Verification' Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI '15 Pittsburgh, USA 5-/-0/20155-/-0/2015ACM 295-300 Publisher Site , DOI
Asad HU, Jones K & Surre F 2014 'Verifying robust frequency domain properties of non linear oscillators using SMT' 17th Symposium on Design & Diagnostics of Electronic Circuits & Systems Warsaw, Poland. 4-/-0/20144-/-0/2014IEEE 306-309 Publisher Site , DOI
Jones KD & Salako K 2013 'Modeling Security Policy and the Effect for End-Users' Springer Berlin Heidelberg 256-265 , DOI
Sheffler TJ, Mossawir KM & Jones KD 2007 'PHY verification - Still an open problem' 714-731
Kim J, Jones KD & Horowitz MA 2007 'Variable domain transformation for linear PAC analysis of mixed-signal systems' 2007 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design 1-/-1/20071-/-1/2007IEEE , DOI
Kim J, Jones KD & Horowitz MA 2007 'Fast, Non-Monte-Carlo Estimation of Transient Performance Variation Due to Device Mismatch' 2007 44th ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference 6-/-0/20076-/-0/2007IEEE , DOI
Jones KD 1987 'A formal semantics for a DataFlow Machine — Using VDM' Springer Berlin Heidelberg 331-355 , DOI
Jones KD 1987 'Support environments for VDM' Springer Berlin Heidelberg 110-117 , DOI
Jones KD & Privitera JP 'The automatic generation of functional test vectors for Rambus designs' 33rd Design Automation Conference ACM , DOI

Additional information

I've worked on trustworthiness of complex systems, in one form or another, for most of my professional career. 

Originally, formal methods and proof in the context of software development. Then many years in hardware verification, both pragmatic and theoretical, ranging from pre-tapeout verification of high volume silicon designs through to novel approaches to the formal verification of analog circuits.
More recently, I've been working in the areas of cyber-security, with an interest in quantitative approaches to security and a very specific focus on security in the maritime domain. 

I've covered the spectrum from pure academic research through to pragmatic hands on industry deployment in both verification and security, and see the benefits of both academic and industrial mindsets.

In recent years, I've spent a lot of time working with extraordinary individuals and building and managing some great teams capable of amazing results. Team building, managing, mentoring and teaching with people at various levels of experience has been a very satisfying addition to the technical work and has allowed us collectively to achieve far more than any of us could have managed singularly. 

Since returning to academia, I have enjoyed teaching students at all levels, from 1st year UG through PhD, and have been very involved in shaping the teaching of Computer Science through academic leadership roles in the University, the BCS and the WCIT.

Specialties: Cyber-security, Hardware verification; Software development; Formal methods; CAD tools; Analog verification; R&D; Leadership; Management