September 2010: James Connan joins the Department of Computer Science

James was schooled in Grahamstown (at Kingswood College), and then went on to study Computer Science at the University of Stellenbosch.  He completed his MSc there, in the field of machine learning.  From 2001 he held various positions in the Department of Computer Science at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), including a period as Deputy Head of Department.

At UWC he was the project leader for the Integration of Signed and Verbal Communication Project.  This project provided innovative tools and techniques to allow for sign-language to be used for communication using cell phones, and was undertaken under the auspices of the Telkom CoE at UWC.  His research interests thus intersect very well with our own research into Distributed Multimedia and the convergence between telecommunications and data networking.

We are delighted to welcome onto our team a promising young researcher and teacher with the track-record and potential to make a significant contribution to our teaching and research programmes here at Rhodes.