Professors about themselves: Timothy Roscoe

Professor Roscoe, what are your interests and hobbies outside of science?
Cooking, hiking, skiing, poststructuralism, and cocktails. Not necessarily in that order.

What's your favourite inspirational quote?
"If it's not fun, why do it?"

What would you do if you had one year of paid leave?
Rent a house somewhere warm by the sea, experiment with cooking, and write a book (not about cooking).

If you weren't a scientist, what would you be?
A political philosopher – probably a bad one.

What is your guiding philosophy for running your lab and doing research?
Systems research is all about learning by building things together – everyone is part of the team. One leads by doing – never tell anyone to do something that you don't think you could do (if you were as smart as them). The most meaningful measure of how well I'm doing as a professor is how successful my students become.

Name a fun fact about your field or your research.
Anyone who isn't confused by modern computer hardware probably doesn't understand it yet.

What does diversity in computer science mean to you and why is it important?
The greater diversity in culture, gender, background, experience, and approach you have in a group, the more creative, productive, and insightful your group will be. Any time we exclude some class of people, we limit the scope of our thinking, and that's not something we want to do.

What's the impact of your research on the society?
Computers are pervasive in our personal lives, our jobs, industry, medicine, science, and many other areas. We try to make them work faster, more cheaply, and more reliably.