Roger Needham, 68; Microsoft Researcher and Security Expert

Roger Needham, 68, a professor of computer systems at Cambridge University who became the first head of Microsoft’s new European research laboratory, died of cancer Feb. 28 in Cambridge, England.

Needham was professor of computer systems at Cambridge from 1981 to 1998 and was 61 when Microsoft asked him to develop the company’s first research facility outside the United States.

The laboratory provided the computer industry with several important innovations, notably in the areas of privacy, passwords and the protection of intellectual property.

Needham attended Cambridge on a scholarship and graduated with degrees in math and philosophy. He later completed a doctorate on the application of digital computers to problems of classification and grouping.

In 1962, Needham joined Cambridge’s computer laboratory as a senior research assistant, and five years later came up with the idea of storing passwords with a one-way function, a practice that is now common. He was appointed professor in 1981.

From 1996 to 1998, Needham was pro-vice chancellor of Cambridge University.