Tim Bell (computer scientist)

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Tim Bell

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=NZL|CNZM|size=100%}}

| birth_name = Timothy Clinton Bell

| image = Tim Bell CNZM (cropped).jpg

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| caption = Bell in 2024

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| fields = Computer science education, computer music and text compression

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| education = Nelson College

| alma_mater = University of Canterbury

| thesis_title = A unifying theory and improvements for existing approaches to text compression

| thesis_url = http://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/8411

| thesis_year = 1986

| doctoral_advisor = John Penny

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| awards = Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education (2018)

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| website = {{URL|https://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/tim.bell}}

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Timothy Clinton Bell {{post-nominals|country=NZL|CNZM|size=85%}} is a New Zealand computer scientist, with interests in computer science education, computer music and text compression. In 2017, it was announced by SIGCSE that Bell would receive the 2018 award for 'Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education'.{{cite web |title=SIGCSE 2018 Award Winners |url=http://sigcse.org/sigcse/node/132 |website=Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education |accessdate=10 November 2017}}{{cite web |title=UC academic Tim Bell to receive international award for Computer Science Education |url=http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/news/2017/tim-bell-to-receive-international-award.html |publisher=University of Canterbury (News) |accessdate=10 November 2017}}

Education

Bell was educated at Nelson College from 1975 to 1979, and was dux in his final year.Nelson College Old Boys' Register, 1856–2006, 6th edition (CD-ROM).{{cite news |url=https://community.nelson.school.nz/#nelsonian/bulletinmagazine |title=King's honours |work=The Bulletin |page=196 |publisher=Nelson College Old Boys' Association |year=2024 |access-date=16 February 2025}} He completed his PhD at the University of Canterbury, with a thesis titled A unifying theory and improvements for existing approaches to text compression.{{cite thesis |last=Bell |first=Timothy |year=1986 |type=Doctoral thesis |title=A unifying theory and improvements for existing approaches to text compression |publisher=UC Research Repository, University of Canterbury |hdl=10092/8411 |doi=10.26021/2003 |url=https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/8411}}

Career and research

Bell joined the staff and rose to professor and head of department. In parallel with his academic work he has developed Computer Science Unplugged, a system of activities for teaching computer science without computers.{{cite web |url=http://csunplugged.org/users/tim-bell |title=Tim Bell | Computer Science Unplugged |accessdate=2014-06-25 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091015105337/http://www.csunplugged.org/users/tim-bell |archivedate=15 October 2009}} The system was actively promoted by Google in 2007.{{cite web |url=http://www.google.com/educators/activities.html |title=Google for Educators |website=google.com |access-date=13 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070823152554/http://www.google.com/educators/activities.html |archive-date=23 August 2007 |url-status=dead}}

In the 2024 New Year Honours, Bell was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to computer science education.{{cite news |url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/new-year-honours-2024-the-full-list/MKD6GRO3SNFONISQU45WVVRK4Q/ |title=New Year Honours 2024: the full list |date=30 December 2023 |work=The New Zealand Herald |access-date=30 December 2023}}

= Selected works =

Witten, Ian H., Alistair Moffat, Timothy C. Bell, Managing gigabytes: compressing and indexing documents and images. Morgan Kaufmann, 1999.
Bell, Timothy C., John G. Cleary, and Ian H. Witten. Text compression. Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1990.
Witten, Ian H., and Timothy C. Bell. "The zero-frequency problem: Estimating the probabilities of novel events in adaptive text compression." IEEE transactions on information theory 37, no. 4 (1991): 1085–1094.
Ian H. Witten, Alistair Moffat, and Timothy C. Bell. Managing gigabytes: compressing and indexing documents and images. Morgan Kaufmann, 1999.
Bell, Timothy, Ian H. Witten, and John G. Cleary. "Modeling for text compression." ACM Computing Surveys 21, no. 4 (1989): 557–591.

References

Category:Living people

Category:New Zealand computer scientists

Category:University of Canterbury alumni

Category:Academic staff of the University of Canterbury

Category:People educated at Nelson College

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit