Gareth Davies

“My parents constantly had The Bill, Taggart, A Touch of Frost, Miss Marple, and Hercule Poirot on TV shows when I was growing up. Combine that with my own interest of the Famous Five series, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle books on Sherlock Homes, and my love of making, breaking and fixing computers from an early age, you get the picture.

“I always liked to know and explore how things worked and what they could be made to do and what the results of those actions could be. Cyber and Digital Forensics are a natural extension of that interest and curiosity. 

“I’m a Senior Lecturer and I also lead the Cybercrime and Digital Forensics (CDF) research and consultancy capabilities at USW. I specialise in Digital Forensics and Cyber Threat Intelligence. Much of my time is made up of developing cutting-edge industry-focused academic content and delivering to undergraduate and postgrad students, and supervising their academic projects which often include live industry briefs.

“I have contributed to three ISO standards in Cyber, so that graduates have the right skills to take up jobs in industry. The above scholarly activity supports the University in maintaining its rank as an Academic Centre of Excellence for Cyber Security from the National Cyber Security Centre, which is part of GCHQ. It is an honour to be a member of the team which has led USW to the National UK Cyber University of the Year award for the past three years running.

“The best part of my job is job satisfaction: transferring what I know to students in a way that they can understand and use the knowledge, not just in specific technical situations, but later in their careers, facing different problems to navigate and solve generally. 

“I see it as a way of transferring the enthusiasm I have for the core scientific subject and continuing development of students autonomous learning capability. I enjoy interacting directly with individual students to ensure they get the best out of the University, and helping to maximise their career prospects.

“I believe we have a large part to play as key stakeholders of the future cyber guardians of our nation, protecting ourselves and our critical cyber systems against sophisticated cybercriminals and nation-state threats.

“The Cyber team at USW is so successful and I like to believe that it is to do with our students, the relationships we forge with them, the calibre of graduates we send out to industry, our community-based work in South Wales, and the consultancy work we do in terms of Cyber.

“My students have a massive influence on me and teach me a great deal every year. I am proud to be a part of their academic journey.”