Title: Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Hometown: Palo Alto, California
Educational and professional background: Bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Stanford University; PhD in computer and information science from the University of Pennsylvania; postdocs at University College London and Cornell University.
How did you get into your field of research?
I have always been interested in computer science, but I never thought about doing research (or even making a career) in computer science through most of my undergrad. Near the end, I was still planning to go to graduate school in mathematics when I took a visiting lecturer’s class about the Haskell programming language. I was deeply impressed by the elegance of the style of programming, and this class changed the course of my career toward programming languages and formal verification.
My other interest in privacy-preserving algorithms was spurred by working with Aaron Roth, who had just started as a professor at Penn when I arrived as a graduate student. He was one of the early researchers on differential privacy, a fascinating definition of privacy that had been proposed just a few years before.
What attracted you to UW-Madison?
The strength and breadth of the computer sciences department, along with the collegial and collaborative atmosphere. UW-Madison was one of the biggest CS departments that I considered, but it somehow still seemed tightly knit.
What was your first visit to campus like?
I had actually visited UW-Madison for the first time when I was figuring out where to go for graduate school. I arrived in the dead of winter during a storm and I vaguely remember it was not the most pleasant experience. Fortunately, my subsequent visits were better timed, and I found UW-Madison — and Madison in general — to be an attractive and pleasant place.
What’s one thing you hope students who take a class with you will come away with?
Computer science is often in the news these days, but I feel that the amazing breadth of the field is somewhat underappreciated. I hope that I can expose students to some of the lesser-known — but equally fascinating! — areas of computer science, and give them a deeper understanding of computer science beyond the hype.
What’s something interesting about your area of expertise you can share that will make us sound smarter at parties?
All programming languages are bad, but in different ways.
Hobbies/other interests:
I enjoy cooking and rock climbing.