Dr David Gresty BSc, MSc, PhD

Senior Lecturer in Disruptive Technologies (Digital Forensics)

Key details

Dr David Gresty

Senior Lecturer in Disruptive Technologies (Digital Forensics)


David is a Senior Lecturer of Digital Forensics since 2018. He is a member of the Centre for Sustainable Cyber Security (CS2) at the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Faculty of Engineering and Science, University of Greenwich.

Prior to joining the University of Greenwich he has worked for UK Law Enforcement as a Digital Forensics Specialist, both within a police computer crime unit, and as an independent expert. He has investigated a broad range of offences from burglary and handling stolen goods, sexual offences, missing persons, drug trafficking and murder. He was an analyst on Operation Deliver, the largest cash robbery in the UK, and Operation Saisir the largest “Cash for Crash” insurance fraud at that time. David was one of the first (if not the first) analyst in the UK to investigate Indecent Cartoon images.

David has given expert evidence in Magistrate, Family and Criminal court (including the Central Criminal Court – The Old Baily), and trains undergraduate and postgraduate students in expert witness testimony.

Responsibilities within the university

  • Module Leader: COMP1553 – Introduction to Computer Forensics (Level 5)
  • Module Leader: COMP1812 –Computer Forensics (Level 6)
  • Lecturer: COMP1541 – Computer Crime and Forensics (Level 7)
  • Final Year Project supervision for Level 6 (undergraduate) and Level 7 projects in Cyber Security and Digital Forensics.

Research / Scholarly interests

Research topics

  • Simulation and Training for Digital Forensics Expert Witnesses.
  • Investigation of Missing Persons.

Research supervision

Doctoral Students
  • Damola Lawal (Univ. of Greenwich, since 2019) “An investigation into the credibility of expert witnesses”.

Recent publications

Gan, D., Chadwick, D., Gresty, D., Vuong, T. and Phillips, E., 2017, December. Experiential and Simulated Learning: An Interdisciplinary Approach. In 2017 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI) (pp. 1183-1186). IEEE.

Gresty, D.W., Loukas, G., Gan, D. and Ierotheou, C., 2017, June. Towards Web Usage Attribution via Graph Community Detection in Grouped Internet Connection Records. In 2017 IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things (iThings) and IEEE Green Computing and Communications (GreenCom) and IEEE Cyber, Physical and Social Computing (CPSCom) and IEEE Smart Data (SmartData) (pp. 365-372). IEEE.

Taylor, M., Haggerty, J., Gresty, D., Wren, C. and Berry, T., 2016. Avoiding the misuse of social media by employees. Network Security2016(5), pp.8-11.

Gresty, D.W., Gan, D., Loukas, G. and Ierotheou, C., 2016. Facilitating forensic examinations of multi-user computer environments through session-to-session analysis of Internet history. Digital Investigation16, pp.S124-S133.

Taylor, M., Haggerty, J., Gresty, D., Criado Pacheco, N., Berry, T. and Almond, P., 2015. Investigating employee harassment via social media. Journal of Systems and Information Technology17(4), pp.322-335.

Taylor, M., Haggerty, J., Gresty, D., Almond, P. and Berry, T., 2014. Forensic investigation of social networking applications. Network Security2014(11), pp.9-16.

Gresty, D.W., Gan, D. and Loukas, G., Digital Forensic Analysis of Internet History Using Principal Component Analysis. 15th Annual Postgraduate Symposium on the Convergence of Telecommunications, Networking and Broadcasting, 237-242, Liverpool, UK (June 23–24 2014)​

Taylor, M., Hughes, G., Haggerty, J., Gresty, D. and Almond, P., 2012. Digital evidence from mobile telephone applications. Computer Law & Security Review28(3), pp.335-339.

Taylor, M., Haggerty, J., Gresty, D. and Berry, T., 2011. Digital evidence from peer-to-peer networks. Computer Law & Security Review27(6), pp.647-652.

Taylor, M., Haggerty, J., Gresty, D. and Lamb, D., 2011. Forensic investigation of cloud computing systems. Network Security2011(3), pp.4-10.

Taylor, M., Haggerty, J., Gresty, D. and Fergus, P., 2010. Forensic investigation of peer-to-peer networks. Network Security2010(9), pp.12-15.

Taylor, M., Haggerty, J., Gresty, D. and Hegarty, R., 2010. Digital evidence in cloud computing systems. Computer law & security review26(3), pp.304-308.​