Susan Stepney

Stepney became interested in science and science fiction at a young age. She completed her undergraduate and graduate degree at the University of Cambridge, where she studied theoretical physics and Part III of the Mathematical Tripos. Her doctoral research involved using analytical mathematics and Fortran to understand relativistic astrophysics plasmas. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge. She left academia to join industry, moving to join the Marconi Research Centre, where she worked with Transputers and Occam on a Parallel Simulation Facility. She designed and implemented a tool for Graphical Representation of Activity, Interconnection and Loading. She used the Z specification language to develop a framework for an access control system that allowed users from multiple administrators to communicate whilst the administrators retained network-wide control. She animated the access control system in Prolog.

Stepney moved to Logica in 1989, where she spent thirteen years working on mathematical modelling of computing systems and specialising in the Z notation. She worked on a high integrity compiler for high integrity applications, which became known as DeCCo. Stepney's DeCCo compiler was deployed on processors at Qinetiq and Atomic Weapons Establishment. She developed a formal language tool for Logica using Smalltalk.

In 2002, Stepney joined the University of York, where she worked on unconventional computing. She has worked on physical computation and the programming requirements for unconventional requirements. She has developed computer simulations of complex systems, including pioneering evolutionary algorithms for biological and chemical processes.

• Dominic Horsman; Susan Stepney; Rob C Wagner; Viv Kendon (2014). "When does a physical system compute?". Proceedings of the Royal Society A. 470 (2169) 20140182. arXiv:1309.7979. doi:10.1098/rspa.2014.0182. PMC 4123767. PMID 25197245. Zbl 1353.68077. Wikidata Q51041788.
• Stepney, S.; Guilbert, P. W. (1983-10-01). "Numerical fits to important rates in high temperature astrophysical plasmas". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 204 (4): 1269, 1277. doi:10.1093/mnras/204.4.1269. ISSN 0035-8711.
• Clark, John A.; Jacob, Jeremy L.; Stepney, Susan (2005-09-01). "The design of S-boxes by simulated annealing". New Generation Computing. 23 (3): 219, 231. doi:10.1007/BF03037656. ISSN 1882-7055.