Biography

Ian Wells has worked in NHS computing for over thirty years and is head of the scientific computing section in the Department of Medical Physics at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford. He originally read chemistry at Oxford and worked in industry for several years before joining the NHS as a clinical scientist specialising in liquid and gas chromatography and continuous flow analysis. In the course of this work he became increasingly involved with the use of computers and published his first paper in this field in 1980. Two years later he was encouraged to retrain as a computer scientist at the University of Surrey, and in due course he was awarded its first PhD in computing. In the mid-1990s he moved into Medical Physics to build up a scientific computing team, developing bespoke software solutions to problems for which no credible commercial solution is available and providing high performance computing facilities for medical image analysis and research. In 1999 he was invited by the Department of Computing at Surrey to assist with teaching and research, and was appointed a Visiting Professor in 2005. His main research interest is the role of artificial intelligence in medicine, including understanding how a better knowledge of medical decision-making can improve software design and patient safety. He has written numerous papers on medical computing and spoken at conferences around the world. Outside work Ian and his wife enjoy mountain walking, cross country skiing, photography and travel and have an on-going love affair with Switzerland where they spend several weeks a year. They are also members of a large and lively church in Guildford as well as a local fitness club.