Name: Samuel Stark
Hometown: Cambridge, UK
Extracurricular activities: Percussion, music including Gilbert and Sullivan, software and game development
Degree: PhD in Computer Science
Life before Catz
“I sat both my GCSEs and A Levels early, after being home-schooled until I was 13 years old, so I took the opportunity to have a gap year before university, which I spent working at a start-up developing virtual reality games. I got to see how senior programmers would design algorithms based on how the underlying hardware functioned, which led me to change my undergraduate degree subject from Computer Science to Computer Systems Engineering, so I could better understand computer architecture in particular. After undergraduate studies at University of Warwick, I went on to complete an MPhil in Advanced Computer Science at Clare College, Cambridge.”
Life at Catz
“The sense of community at Catz has been wonderful. The Middle Combination Room (MCR) represents the postgraduate community and hosts a wide range of social activities. One of my favourites was a recent weekend when we welcomed students at Worcester College, Oxford, which Catz is informally twinned with – their visit was a good opportunity to meet new people and show them around Cambridge.”
Postgraduate studies
“My project focuses on enforcing security where computer systems share memory. Most modern systems, such as your phone, are actually many small computers glued together. Your phone has a main CPU, a GPU for graphics, a Wi-Fi system, a Bluetooth system, etc. which communicate by writing data into a big shared memory bank. This is a problem if, for example, someone hacks into the Wi-Fi system – the Wi-Fi system can access anything in the shared memory, so the attacker can then break into the other systems. The CHERI project at Cambridge describes how one can add extra memory protection to the main CPU, and I’m working on using similar concepts to protect memory from hostile peripherals and subsystems.
“Alongside my research, I am working with other postgrads to develop an app/game designed to help young paediatric cancer patients understand their disease and treatments.”
The Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholars Programme
“The Harding Programme is fantastic. The generous financial component is, of course, appreciated, but the social and development opportunities cannot be undervalued. The cohort is full of talented, passionate people from different colleges, fields, and walks of life, who I would not have met otherwise. The Programme also hosts personal development events, such as the recent sessions on finding your writing voice and applying for research grants, which have been very useful.”
Advice for undergraduates thinking of applying for postgraduate studies
“It’s quite natural to focus on a narrow area of special interest during undergraduate and Master’s degrees. However, when you come to apply for PhD programmes, it is important to look beyond these interests – try to demonstrate a solid understanding of your field as a whole and the wider significance of the research you’ll be pursuing. This context makes your project proposals more compelling, especially to people from other fields. Ensuring your work is understood by these “intelligent non-experts” is essential, as they make up the funding bodies etc. that you’re trying to impress! Even breadth outside your subject area is valuable – the year I applied, students were invited to submit evidence of their interdisciplinary work, so I decided to draw upon my gap year experience working with developers and artists who approach game-making from different perspectives.”
