Dr Alison Cawsey, 20/4/63 - 1/6/09

Colleagues will be saddened to learn of the death of Dr Alison Cawsey, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science. She passed away peacefully in the Marie Curie Hospice on 1st June, after a long and courageous struggle with malignant melanoma.

With degrees from the University of Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh, Alison held research posts at both institutions, and a Lectureship at the University of Glasgow, before joining Heriot-Watt University in 1995. She was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2002.

Alison was an international expert in Artificial Intelligence techniques for natural language explanation, in particular to give simplified accounts of medical diagnoses. She held grants from EPSRC, ESRC, EU and the Scottish Office, and published widely. Alison was also a most able teacher, publishing internationally respected textbooks on Artificial Intelligence and on Internet Technology and eCommerce. Most recently, Alison was Director of the MACS/CS MSc programme.

Alison was a key member of Computer Science. Gentle, thoughtful, generous and good humoured, she will be sorely missed. She is survived by husband Richard, and children Sophie and Andrew to whom we offer our deepest sympathy.

Plans for an on-campus memorial to Alison, by subscription, are underway.