Yesterday, 10th July, was a special day in the calendar – we celebrated the 80th Anniversary of late Professor David Kinniment. David was my closest mentor at Newcastle when I arrived here in 1991.

He was a pioneer of research in metastability , arbitration and
synchronization as well as VLSI design led Microelectronic Systems Design group at Newcastle for 20 years.

We generated many ideas for projects, PhD research, papers, design tools, conference and industrial presentations. Above all, we just enjoyed spending time in discussions about science, culture and genealogy. David and his wife Anne welcomed on many occasions the whole Newcastle MSD team in their wonderful Sike View house in Kirkwhelpington in the middle of Northumberland.

By lovely coincidence it wouldn’t have been a better occasion yesterday that I was kindly invited to give a lecture “Becoming a Researcher: from Follower to Leader” to the wonderful 100+ audience of Iraqi researchers – the invitation came from my PhD alumni Dr Ammar J M Karkar, Professor and Director of IT Research and Development at University of Kufa, Iraq.

The lecture is now available on YouTube https://youtu.be/JnfObxmTslc

All the best!