Personal
I grew up in a new town called Glenrothes, in Fife, Scotland. I'm afraid that nobody has yet been moved to create a decent web page about Glenrothes that I can link to, but to give you some idea of what it was like to live there, its main selling point to visitors is that it is close to lots of golf courses. I was almost named "Melanie", which I don't think would suit me, but luckily my mum's a big tennis fan and got the name "Kerry" from the Australian player Kerry Melville. I suppose she must have realised that "Billie Jean" doesn't go too well with "Rodden".
Despite that sporting pedigree, it was obvious from an early age that I'd end up as a computer scientist: I was never too keen on actually playing with my dolls, but I used to like sorting them in order of size (I can't remember which algorithms I used, though). I moved to Glasgow to do my degree at Strathclyde University, before infiltrating England and making my way to Cambridge (and Newnham College) for my PhD. For those of you who may be confused about the relationship (a bit of a torrid love-hate affair) between Scotland and England, Paul Dourish has provided a handy guide. And now, of course, I live in Palo Alto, California.
If you want to know more, well, I always think you can tell a lot about someone from what they listen to. These are my top ten favourite songs of all time, in roughly chronological order:
| this old heart of mine (is weak for you) | - | the isley brothers |
| the look of love | - | dusty springfield |
| this charming man | - | the smiths |
| into the groove | - | madonna |
| inbetween days | - | the cure |
| dress | - | pj harvey |
| rebound | - | sebadoh |
| stutter | - | elastica |
| protection | - | massive attack |
| start together | - | sleater-kinney |
Yes, I was Rob from "High Fidelity" in a former life.