He received his M.Sc. degree in computing from Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, Moscow, Russia, in 1988 and his Ph.D. degree in mathematics (with distinction) from the University of Western Australia in 1996. Prior to joining NTU in January 2006, he held a number of postdoctoral positions in The Netherlands, Germany, and USA. His research interests include combinatorics, optimisation, algebra and geometry (including computational), and complexity of algorithms.