Kevin Hammond
Professor of Computer Science
University of St Andrews, UK
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Kevin HammondProfessor of Computer ScienceUniversity of St Andrews, UK |
I'm a (full) Professor in Computer Science, in the School of Computer Science, at the University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland, where I lead the Functional Programming research group. I am also the School's Director of Teaching. I am married to Vicki, who works at the Royal Society of Edinburgh. We live in an 18th Century sandstone house in Cupar, near St Andrews, with our little grey cat, and large numbers of (wild) goldfinches. Our cat lives in terror of the local blackbird, who we have nicknamed "Bolshy".
The functional programming group are helping organise ICFP 2009 and associated events in Edinburgh UK, August 30th-September 4th 2009. Please submit a paper (note that the ICFP deadline is March 2nd, 2009).
Prof. Greg Michaelson is delivering his inaugural lecture at Heriot-Watt on February 19th. I've been asked to chair the lecture.
My
main research interests fall in the area of the design and implementation of
pure functional languages. I was a leading member of the Haskell
1.4 committee (there is a tutorial paper that describes monadic I/O
in Haskell
1.3), as well as other Haskell committees, and have been involved in the
implementation of parallel Haskell on GRIP and other parallel machines (the
GUM system).
A non-technical poster
is available that describes this work in general terms.
I am currently working on a number of projects, with EU, EPSRC and DTC funding. These include the design and implementation of Hume (named after the Scot David Hume — portrait on the right), a functionally based language for embedded/safety critical systems. This work is joint with Greg Michaelson and has been funded by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, EPSRC. The 3-year ImParTial project (also funded by EPSRC) aims to combine functional programming technology with the GAP computational algebra package in order to exploit parallel and GRID computation.
A three-year grant to continue my work on granularity analysis for functional languages has just come to an end (this is joint work with my former PhD student, Hans-Wolfgang Loidl, and with Alvaro Rebon Portillo). The project has undertaken fundamental work in analysing costs of recursive function definitions, which will now be put into practice in Hume and other contexts.
Work on the parallel GUM and GranSim systems has been undertaken jointly with Phil Trinder and Hans-Wolfgang Loidl, now both at Heriot-Watt University.
Here is a Java demo of a dynamic parallel program execution written in June1996 (one of the world's first Java applets? And still working!).
The book I edited jointly with Greg Michaelson was published by Springer, UK in September 1999. Full publication details can be found here. This 520 page book is intended to be the definitive reference source for research in parallel functional programming as of the date of publication. We are considering a new, up to date, second edition. Please contact me if you are interested in contributing.
I am a member of the programme committee for the 2009 ACM International Conference on Generative Programming and Component Engineering (GPCE 2009), the 2009 International Symposium on Trends in Functional Programming (TFP 2009).
With Graham Hutton (Nottingham), Phil Wadler (Edinburgh) and Greg Michaelson (Heriot-Watt), I am a member of the organising committee for ICFP 2009, Edinburgh UK, September 2009.
I am a member of the advisory board for EuroPar, the European Conference on Parallelism.
I am a member of the Steering Committee for the International Symposia on Applications and Implementations of Functional Programming (IFL).
I am a member of the Steering Committee for the International Symposia on Trends in Functional Programming (TFP).
I am a charter member of IFIP Working Group 2.11 (Generative Programming).
I am a member of the Steering Committee for the SICSA-sponsored summer School on Advances in Programming Languages, held at Heriot-Watt University from 25th-29th August 2009.
I jointly adminster, with Greg Michaelson, the Peter Landin Prize for the best paper each year at IFL.
I teach a wide range of courses in the School, including CS4201, CS1005 and CS2002. Please see the school web pages for details of my current teaching activities.
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Room 0.07, Jack Cole Building School of Computer Science, University of St. Andrews, North Haugh, St. Andrews, Fife, KY16 9SX, Scotland Tel: +44 (1334) 463241
Email: GPS: 56.3402 N, 2.8086 W |
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When I get the time, I like to go hill-walking. St Andrews is a good base for this, since you can quickly get on to the M90 and A9 to head into the heart of the Highlands. Here are pictures of some of the Munros I've climbed in various parts of Scotland (my total count is now 230 or so!), plus other places I've visited. Jim Mattson (now of TransMeta) also has some exciting photos taken on the Tarmachan Ridge near Loch Tay, on a rare day when we didn't have a whiteout. I've just acquired a Garmin GPS60CSx. I hope to get the chance to upload some of my tracks from this soon.
I am also seriously into early music (as in pre-Bach -- my CD collection ends c. 1800!). I've recently added Bolivian Baroque, Vol. 1; a CD by the Mediaeval Baebes; plus three CDs by Jordi Savall and Hesperion XX.
One advantage of St. Andrews is its country seaside setting. The department overlooks the Old Course beside the beach where I go running when I get time between lectures and papers. My best time so far is 37:35 for a 5 and a quarter mile route (but not recently!).
I'm fond of the peatier whiskies, including the Islay Peat Monsters Ardbeg, Lagavulin, Laphraoig and Caol Ila. I have a small collection of single malts reserved for special discerning guests (amongst the interesting bottles I'm enjoying at the moment are an Ardbeg Uigedail, an unusally mellow Ardbeg from the SMWS; a 15yo Laphraoig; and Bunnabhain's Darach Ur). I'm a member of the Ardbeg Committee, and a Friend of Laphraoig, owning my own square foot of Islay on which I collect rent (in whisky) each year.
You can also get excellent beer in a number of pubs in St Andrews. My favourite is the Cellar Bar, which has draft Erdinger WeissBier as well as 3 real ales and Hoegaarden on draft. It also has a selection of a dozen or so continental bottled beers. Great for relaxing after work!
