PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Ross Anderson

Also known as Ross J. Anderson, Ross John Anderson

Ross Anderson was a British security engineer and Cambridge professor who applied security engineering to machine learning, from attacks on neural networks to the model collapse of generative models. After a BA in mathematics and natural sciences at Cambridge in 1978 and years in aviation and banking, he returned for a PhD under Roger Needham, completed in 1995. He founded the Foundation for Information Policy Research in 1998, published the textbook Security Engineering in 2001, and became Professor of Security Engineering at Cambridge in 2003. His coauthored papers include Sponge Examples in 2020, Data Ordering Attacks and Bad Characters in 2021, and The Curse of Recursion in 2023, which named model collapse. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2009, won the BCS Lovelace Medal in 2015, and died in March 2024.

Born
1956
Died
2024
Badges

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. 1978–1995

    Cambridge degree and PhD

    He earns a BA in mathematics and natural sciences at Cambridge in 1978 and works in aviation and banking. In 1992, he returns to Cambridge for doctoral work under Roger Needham, and he earns the PhD in 1995.

  2. 1995–2003

    Professor of security engineering

    Cambridge appoints him a University Lecturer in 1995, promotes him to Reader in 2000, and makes him Professor of Security Engineering in 2003.

  3. 1998–2001

    FIPR and Security Engineering

    He founds the Foundation for Information Policy Research, a think tank, in 1998. Wiley publishes the first edition of his textbook Security Engineering in 2001, and the book reaches a third edition.

  4. 2009

    Elected to the Royal Society

    The Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering both elect him a Fellow in 2009.

  5. 2015

    The BCS Lovelace Medal

    The British Computer Society awards him its Lovelace Medal in 2015.

  6. 2020–2021

    Attacks on neural networks

    In June 2020, he is a coauthor of Sponge Examples, which crafts inputs that raise the energy use and delay the decisions of neural networks; the attacks increase energy consumption by a factor of 10 to 200 on vision and language models. In 2021, he coauthors Manipulating SGD with Data Ordering Attacks, which poisons a model by changing only the order of its training data, and Bad Characters, which uses imperceptible character encodings to manipulate NLP systems from machine translation to web search.

  7. 2023

    The Curse of Recursion

    In May 2023, he coauthors The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget with Ilia Shumailov, Zakhar Shumaylov, Yiren Zhao, Yarin Gal and Nicolas Papernot. The paper asks what happens to GPT-n once most of the content online comes from previous models, and finds that training on model-generated content causes irreversible defects, an effect it names Model Collapse. The Royal Society of Edinburgh also elects him a Fellow in 2023.

  8. 2024

    Joint post at Edinburgh

    He dies at home in March 2024, aged 67, after splitting his time as a professor between the University of Edinburgh and the University of Cambridge since 2021.

Career

  1. 2021–2024University of EdinburghProfessor
  2. From 1998Foundation for Information Policy ResearchFounder
  3. 1995–2024University of CambridgeUniversity Lecturer, Reader

Education

  1. 1995University of CambridgePhD
  2. 1978University of CambridgeBA

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University of Cambridge. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes University of Cambridge. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  3. Companies supply the most prior-work hires at 7 of the 9 frontier AI labsIncludes University of Cambridge. Our estimates of the organizations where 550 people worked directly before joining 9 frontier AI labs across 620 career transitions, comparing the main feeder organizations per lab.
  4. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorateIncludes University of Cambridge. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorate. Across 2,116 people with both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate recorded, we trace which undergraduate schools feed which doctoral programs, how often students stay at the same school, and how paths differ by birth-country region.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Ross Anderson yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Ross Anderson, 1956 - 2024 | Department of Computer Science and Technology cst.cam.ac.uk. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Ross J. Anderson - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Security pioneer Ross Anderson dies at 67 theregister.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. Ross Anderson, professor and famed author of 'Security Engineering,' passes away | The Record from Recorded Future News therecord.media. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. [2006.03463] Sponge Examples: Energy-Latency Attacks on Neural Networks arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. [2104.09667] Manipulating SGD with Data Ordering Attacks arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. [2106.09898] Bad Characters: Imperceptible NLP Attacks arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. [2305.17493] The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. Ross Anderson's Home Page cl.cam.ac.uk. Checked 22 October 2026.