Nigel Topham received a B.Sc. degree in Computer Science in 1982 and a Ph.D. degree in 1985, both from the University of Manchester.

He was an SERC Research Fellow from 1985-86, and has been a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at Edinburgh University since 1986. He was closely involved in the development of the ACRI-1 architecture from 1990-95, and managed the Edinburgh University research project which contributed towards the ACRI-1 architecture and compiler developments.

His research interests include high-performance parallel architectures and compiler design.