Sarah Flannery

Who is Sarah Flannery?

Sarah Flannery was, at sixteen years old, the winner of the 1999 Esat Young Scientist Exhibition for development of the Cayley–Purser algorithm, based on work she had done with researchers at Baltimore Technologies during a brief internship there. The project, entitled "Cryptography – A new algorithm versus the RSA", also won her the EU Young Scientist of the Year Award for 1999. Her book In Code, co-written with her father, mathematician David Flannery, retells the story of the making and breaking of the algorithm and of the enjoyment that she got, as a child and throughout her life, from solving mathematical puzzles.

She studied computer science at Peterhouse, a college of the University of Cambridge, graduating in 2003, and, as of 2006, worked for Electronic Arts as a software engineer. She now works at TirNua, which she helped found, as a "Chief Scientist". She focuses on developing the virtual economy in the game and the back-end web services that power game features.

Before working at TirNua, Sarah was software engineer working directly with then Electronic Arts Worldwide Chief Technology Officer, Scott Cronce, and, later, with many fellow Tirnua founders on her first virtual world. Cronce described her as "a rising star [and] a dynamo of energy with great intelligence"!