Graham Hutton

*** Fully-Funded PhD studentship in Functional Programming ***

I'm Professor of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, where I lead the Functional Programming Lab together with Thorsten Altenkirch.

I'm Vice-Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Programming Languages (SIGPLAN), an Editorial Board member of the Journal of Functional Programming (JFP), and Steering Committee Chair of the International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP).

My research interests are in functional programming, with an emphasis on formally-based approaches to program construction and verification. My aim is to develop simple but powerful techniques for writing and reasoning about programs, by recognising and exploiting their underlying mathematical structure. My work covers a range of topics in this area, including functional parsing, relational programming, recursion operators, coinductive types, exceptions and interrupts, space and time complexity, concurrent programming, and program optimisation.

New video lecture:

• How to be more productive (slides, paper; extended paper; code).

Current and recent work:

• Work it, fix it, wrap it, fold it (2012);
• Representing contractive functions on streams (2011);
• Towards modular compilers for effects (TFP 2011);
• Factorising folds for faster functions (JFP 2010);
• Compiling concurrency correctly: cutting out the middle man (TFP 2009);
• The worker/wrapper transformation (JFP 2009).

Activities

• Editorial board member, ACM International Conference Proceedings Series, 2011-date;
• Editorial board member, Journal of Functional Programming, 2010-date;
• Steering committee chair, International Conference on Functional Programming, 2010-date;
• Vice-chair, ACM SIGPLAN, 2009-2012;
• External examiner, University of Birmingham, 2010-2013;
• External examiner, University of York, 2008-2012;
• Steering committee member, Principles of Programming Languages, 2009-date;
• Steering committee member, Programming Language Design and Implementation, 2009-date;
• Steering committee member, Systems, Programming, Languages, Applications: Software for Humanity, 2009-date;
• Steering committee member, Trends in Functional Programming, 2006-2009;
• Co-organiser, Fun in the Afternoon, 2006-date;
• Director, Midlands Graduate School in the Foundations of Computing Science, 2006-2009;
• Member, EPSRC Peer Review College, 2006-date;
• Secretary, British Colloquium for Theoretical Computer Science, 2005-2011;
• Member, IFIP Working Group 2.1 on Algorithmic Languages and Calculi, 2004-date;
• External examiner, University of Akureyri, Iceland, 2004-2006;
• Site leader, IST Working Group on Applied Semantics II, 2003-2006.

Other recent and upcoming activities:

• Program committee member, Trends in Functional Programming, St Andrews, June 2012;
• Program committee member, Mathematics of Program Construction, Madrid, June 2012;
• Invited lecturer, MGS Spring School, Birmingham, April 2012;
• Program committee member, Haskell Symposium, Tokyo, September 2011;
• Co-organiser, IFIP Working Group 2.1 meeting, Iceland, May 2011;
• Invited lecturer, MGS Spring School, Sheffield, March 2010;
• General chair, International Conference on Functional Programming, Edinburgh, August 2009;
• Program committee member, Trends in Functional Programming, Slovakia, June 2009;
• Organiser, Midlands Graduate School Christmas Seminars, Nottingham, December 2008;
• Programme committee member, Trends in Functional Programming, Nijmegen, May 2008;
• Program committee member and workshops co-chair, International Conference on Functional Programming, Freiburg, October 2007;
• Visiting Professor, Galois, Portland, July-August 2007;
• Co-organiser, MGS Spring School, Nottingham, April 2007;
• Programme committee member, Mathematically Structured Functional Programming, Estonia, July 2006;
• Programme committee member, Trends in Functional Programming, Tallinn, September 2005;
• Invited lecturer, MGS-APPSEM Spring School, Birmingham, April 2005;
• Programme committee chair, BCTCS, Nottingham, March 2005;
• Invited lecturer, MGS-APPSEM Spring School, Nottingham, March 2004;
• Programme committee chair, First APPSEM-II Workshop, Nottingham, March 2003;
• Invited lecturer, Summer School on Advanced Functional Programming, Oxford, August 2002;
• Editor, Special Double Issue on Haskell of the Journal of Functional Programming, July 2002;
• Programme committee chair, Haskell Workshop, Montreal, September 2000.

Publications

A list of publications, bibtex entries, and citations, is available, or you can jump directly to a particular item:

• Work it, fix it, wrap it, fold it (2012);
• Representing contractive functions on streams (2011);
• Towards modular compilers for effects (TFP 2011);
• Factorising folds for faster functions (JFP 2010);
• Compiling concurrency correctly: cutting out the middle man (TFP 2009);
• The worker/wrapper transformation (JFP 2009);
• Modularity and implementation of mathematical operational semantics (MSFP 2008);
• Towards a verified implementation of software transactional memory (TFP 2008);
• Reasoning about effects: seeing the wood through the trees (TFP 2008);
• What is the meaning of these constant interruptions? (JFP 2007);
• Programming in Haskell (CUP 2007);
• Compact fusion (MSFP 2006);
• Accurate step counting (IFL 2005);
• Report on BCTCS 2005 (EATCS 2005);
• Proof methods for corecursive programs (FI 2005);
• Calculating an exceptional machine (TFP 2004);
• Compiling exceptions correctly (MPC 2004);
• Introduction to functional programming (MGS-APPSEM 2004);
• Proceedings of the First APPSEM-II Workshop (2003);
• The countdown problem (JFP 2002);
• Special double issue on Haskell (JFP 2002);
• Proceedings of the Haskell Workshop 2000 (ENTCS 2001);
• The generic approximation lemma (IPL 2001);
• When is a function a fold or an unfold? (CMCS 2001);
• Proof methods for structured corecursive programs (SFPW 1999);
• A tutorial on the universality and expressiveness of fold (JFP 1999);
• Fold and unfold for program semantics (ICFP 1998);
• Monadic parsing in Haskell (JFP 1998);
• Monadic parser combinators (1996);
• Back to basics: deriving representation changers functionally (JFP 1996);
• Bananas in space: extending fold and unfold to exponential types (FPCA 1995);
• Review of "An introduction to HOL" (JFP 1994);
• Categories, allegories, and circuit design (LICS 1994);
• A tool for relational programmers (1994);
• The Ruby interpreter (1993);
• A relational derivation of a functional program (STOP 1992);
• Between functions and relations in calculating programs (1992);
• Higher-order functions for parsing (JFP 1992);
• A calculational theory of pers as types (1992);
• Making functionality more general (GWFP 1992);
• Functional programming with relations (GWFP 1991);
• Parsing using combinators (GWFP 1990).

Videos

• How to be more productive (based on this article);
• Calculating an exceptional machine (based on this article);
• The countdown problem (based on this article).

Projects

• Principal investigator, EPSRC grant on Reasoning About Exceptions and Interrupts, £306,000, 2007-2010;
• Lead investigator, EPSRC grants on the Midlands Graduate School in the Foundations of Computing Science (2,3), £39,000, 2007-2009;
• Co-investigator, EPSRC grant on the British Colloquium for Theoretical Computer Science, £65,000, 2008-2010;
• Co-investigator, EPSRC grant on the British Colloquium for Theoretical Computer Science, £24,000, 2005-2007;
• Site leader, IST Working Group on Applied Semantics II, £250,000, 2003-2006;
• Principal investigator, Microsoft Research Ltd grant on Concurrent Haskell, £25,000, 2001-2004;
• Site leader, ESPRIT Working Group on Applied Semantics, £190,000, 1998-2002;
• Principal investigator, EPSRC grant on Structured Recursive Programming, £11,000, 1997-2000.

Students

• Laurence Day started work on modular compilers in October 2010;
• Liyang Hu submitted his thesis on software transactional memory in October 2010.

Former PhD students:

• Mauro Jaskelioff, Lifting of Operations in Modular Monadic Semantics, September 2009;
• Catherine Hope, A Functional Semantics for Space and Time, August 2008;
• Joel Wright, Compiling and Reasoning about Exceptions and Interrupts, November 2005;
• Paul Blampied, Structured Recursion for Non-Uniform Data-Types, March 2000;
• Anthony Daniels, A Semantics of Functions and Behaviours, December 1999;
• Colin Taylor, Formalising and Reasoning about Fudgets, December 1998.

I'm always keen to hear from excellent students, with some experience in functional programming, who would like to study for a PhD in any of my research areas.

Teaching

• Functional programming (1st year course);
  
• Advanced functional programming (2nd/3rd year course);
  
• Introduction to category theory (postgraduate course).
  

Previous teaching:

• Principles of programming languages (3rd year course).
  
• Concepts of concurrency (2nd year course);
  
• Software engineering group project (2nd year course);
  
• Introduction to domain theory (postgraduate course);
  
• Introduction to functional programming (summer school course);
  
• Introduction to functional programming (spring school course).

My slides for these courses are suitable for use by other lecturers, and for self-study. I can supply copies of the slides for any of these courses on request.

Personal

I'm originally from Glasgow in Scotland, and received a BSc and PhD in Computing Science from the University of Glasgow. I then spent a few years in research positions in Gothenburg and Utrecht, before moving to Nottingham, where I am now Professor of Computer Science. I'm married to Annette, and we have two lovely boys. In my spare time I enjoy slow cooking and fast cars.

Contact