Donald Sannella received his B.S. from Yale University in 1977, his M.S. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1978 and his Ph.D. from Edinburgh University in 1982, all in Computer Science. Since 1981 he has been employed by Edinburgh University, until 1985 as a Research Fellow at the Department of Computer Science, from 1985 to 1989 as Lecturer at the Departments of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, from 1989 to 1998 as Reader at the Department of Computer Science and since 1998 as Professor of Computer Science in the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science within the School of Informatics. From January to September 1990 he was a Professor at Universität Bremen. From October 1992 to September 1997 he held a 5-year EPSRC Advanced Fellowship which relieved him of his teaching and administrative obligations to allow him to concentrate on research, and during 1998 he held a similar 1-year fellowship from the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

His research interests include functional languages (development of HOPE and Standard ML), algebraic specification languages (CLEAR, ASL, Extended ML, CASL), mechanised reasoning, foundations for algebraic specification and formal software development including correctness of modular systems, and applying these foundations to the practical development of modular software systems from specifications. His recent research has focused on security and static analysis with a specific emphasis on resource certification for mobile code. He is founder and CEO of Contemplate icon Contemplate Ltd, a spin-out technology company that is developing tools for programmers to improve the quality of software products.