Dr G. M. Reed was appointed Director of UNU-IIST in January of 2005. He is an Emeritus Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, where from 1986 to 2005, he was the General Electric Company Fellow in Computation.
He holds a doctorate in pure mathematics from Auburn University (USA) and a doctorate in computation from Oxford University (UK). His previous experience includes terms as a Senior Research Associate at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the US Naval Research Laboratory, and as a Manager of Postdoctoral Programs for the US National Science Foundation. He is a former Research Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and former Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Ohio University, where he was also the Associate Director of the Institute for Medicine and Mathematics. On three occasions in the 1970's, he was an Exchange Scholar to Eastern Europe (Poland and Czechoslovakia) for the US National Academy of Sciences. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland, the US Naval Academy, Tulane University, and the University of Paris.
Dr Reed has served as an advisor to the Office of the President (Carter Administration) on scientific manpower, and has served as advisor to government ministers and presidential candidates in Africa.
Dr Reed has numerous publications in both pure mathematics (topology) and in computation (digital images, semantics of programming languages, and software enginering). He has also edited several research volumes and an international research journal. He has given over two hundred research presentations at universities, research laboratories, and international research meetings. In addition, he has been the organizer of several international conferences in both mathematics and in computer science.
Dr Reed was also a co-founder and former director of Formal Systems (Europe) Limited (UK). This company applies formal (mathematical) techniques to the development of software and hardware. Current work includes the design and analysis of fault-tolerant embedded systems, and automated support for reasoning about computer security.