Faculty of Education, Arts, Science and Technology
Suraj Ajit first studied Computer Science and Engineering at Bangalore University in India. He attained a first-class degree and came to the UK to pursue PhD study in Computing at the University of Aberdeen under Professor Derek Sleeman in a multi-million-pound Advanced Knowledge Technologies project. He also worked as a part-time Research Assistant in the project. His thesis involved collaborative work with Rolls-Royce.
Suraj then worked as a Software Engineer for the University of Dundee in a two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership project with a start-up company. On successful completion of the project, he joined BAE Systems as a Research Scientist and worked in model-based software engineering for three years.
Suraj joined the Computing and Immersive Technologies department at the University of Northampton in 2011. He is an Associate Professor in Computer Science and Deputy Head of School of Technology overseeing the postgraduate provision. He served as the Interim/Acting Head of School of Technology between 2022-23. He teaches modules in Software Engineering for both undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses.
Suraj is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He has extensive experience of both external validation and examination of degree courses in other higher education institutions in the UK.
Course Leader for MSc Computing
Modules:
Suraj’s research interests lie in the areas of applied computing, software engineering, ontology, semantic web and computing education (integrity and assessments). He was the principal investigator of a jointly funded research project in model-based software engineering with GE Aviation. The project investigated effective ways to capture high-level requirements in an unambiguous machine interpretable format and automate generation of test cases. He has worked on several funded knowledge exchange projects with local SMEs. He also has experience of working in Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) and other industrial research projects involving Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems. Suraj is also interested in computing education research. He has a consistent record of obtaining internal grants to work on academic integrity and assessments in higher education to enhance student learning, experience and engagement. Suraj has experience of supervising several PhD students to completion. He welcomes doctoral proposals in the areas of applied computing, software engineering and computing education.