Born in NZ he studied at the University of Waikato and Georgia Tech (USA) before completing his PhD in number theory at Oxford University in 1996. He has held post-doc and/or lecturing positions in London (UK), Waterloo (Canada), Essen (Germany), and Bristol (UK). He is an expert on the mathematics of public key cryptography and runs the ellipticnews blog. He received the New Zealand Mathematical Society Research Award in 2013.