Michael Paul Fourman (born 12 September 1950) is Professor of Computer Systems at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, UK, and was Head of the School of Informatics from 2001 to 2009.

He continued to work with Scott as an SRC postdoctoral Research Fellow and Junior Research Fellow of Wolfson College, in Oxford, until 1976, when he moved to the USA, first as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, then, from 1977 to 1982, as JF Ritt Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Columbia University in New York.

Fourman was co-founder and Technical Director of Abstract Hardware Limited (AHL), a company formed in 1986.

In 1998 he was founding Head of the Division of Informatics, which became the current School of Informatics, incorporating the former Department of Artificial Intelligence, the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute, the Centre for Cognitive Science, the Human Communication Research Centre, and the Department of Computer Science.

He has held visiting positions at universities in Paris (1975), Utrecht (1977, 1980), Cambridge (1979–80), Sydney (1982), Montreal (1983), and Perth (1994).