Dr Rich Boakes

I work at the University of Portsmouth. I've been part of the School of Computing's leadership team since 2021, became Associate Head in 2023, and spent nine months as interim Head steering the complex merger with Mathematics and Physics. Alongside that, I teach undergraduate modules and supervise postgraduate research students.

I started in academia in 2002 after a career in industry — IBM, Netscape, and then my own consultancy — designing the directory services, web APIs and early portals that some of Europe's biggest telcos and banks ran on. That commercial background still shapes how I teach: I want students to leave knowing how software is really built, not just how it looks in a textbook.

I still write code — though most of what I write is for the classroom, and only some of it makes it out into the world.

Publications

• A comprehensive analysis of combined stormwater overflow (CSO) discharges to coastal waters and data communications by a UK water company between 2021 and 2023
• Key Challenges for Sustainable E-Services in Unstable Societies: The Case of Syrians in Affordability Issues Surrounding the Use of ICT for Development and Poverty Reduction.
• The need for policies to overcome eGov implementation challenges
• WebSight: Using AR and WebGL shaders to assist the visually impaired
• A history and future of Web APIs
• Position Paper: Open Data-Logging for Bikes
• Slogger: a profiling and analysis system based on Semantic Web technologies
• Ubiquitous Information Browsing