Andrew D. Gordon is a British

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

employed by software synthesis company Cogna as Chief Science Officer, and by the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

. Formerly, he worked for

Microsoft Research Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...

. His research interests include

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

design,

formal methods In computer science, formal methods are mathematics, mathematically rigorous techniques for the formal specification, specification, development, Program analysis, analysis, and formal verification, verification of software and computer hardware, ...

concurrency Concurrent means happening at the same time. Concurrency, concurrent, or concurrence may refer to: Law * Concurrence, in jurisprudence, the need to prove both ''actus reus'' and ''mens rea'' * Concurring opinion (also called a "concurrence"), a ...

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logy, -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of Adversary (cryptography), ...

, and

access control In physical security and information security, access control (AC) is the action of deciding whether a subject should be granted or denied access to an object (for example, a place or a resource). The act of ''accessing'' may mean consuming ...

Biography

Gordon earned a Ph.D. from the

in 1992. Until 1997, Gordon was a Research Fellow at the

University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory The Department of Computer Science and Technology, formerly the Computer Laboratory, is the computer science department of the University of Cambridge. it employed 56 faculty members, 45 support staff, 105 research staff, and about 205 researc ...

. He then joined the

laboratory in Cambridge, England, where he was a principal researcher in the Programming Principles and Tools group. He also holds a professorship at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

Research

Gordon is one of the designers of

Concurrent Haskell Concurrent Haskell (also Control.Concurrent, or Concurrent and Parallel Haskell) is an extension to the functional programming language Haskell, which adds explicit primitive data types for concurrency. It was first added to Haskell 98, and ...

, an extension to the

functional Functional may refer to: * Movements in architecture: ** Functionalism (architecture) ** Form follows function * Functional group, combination of atoms within molecules * Medical conditions without currently visible organic basis: ** Functional s ...

Haskell Haskell () is a general-purpose, statically typed, purely functional programming language with type inference and lazy evaluation. Designed for teaching, research, and industrial applications, Haskell pioneered several programming language ...

, which added explicit

primitive data type In computer science, primitive data types are a set of basic data types from which all other data types are constructed. Specifically it often refers to the limited set of data representations in use by a particular processor, which all compiled ...

s for

, and then became a

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

named Control.Concurrent as part of the

Glasgow Haskell Compiler The Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC) is a native or machine code compiler for the functional programming language Haskell. It provides a cross-platform software environment for writing and testing Haskell code and supports many extensions, libra ...

. He is the co-designer with

Martin Abadi Martin may refer to: Places Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Europe * Martin, Croatia, a village * Martin, Slovakia, a city * Martín del Río, Aragón, Spain * Mart� ...

of Spi calculus, a

π-calculus In theoretical computer science, the -calculus (or pi-calculus) is a process calculus. The -calculus allows channel names to be communicated along the channels themselves, and in this matter, it is able to describe concurrent computations whose ...

extension, for formalized reasoning about cryptographic systems. He and

Luca Cardelli Luca Andrea Cardelli is an Italian computer scientist who is a research professor at the University of Oxford, UK. Cardelli is well known for his research in type theory and operational semantics. Among other contributions, in programming lang ...

invented the

ambient calculus In computer science, the ambient calculus is a process calculus devised by Luca Cardelli and Andrew D. Gordon in 1998, and used to describe and theorise about concurrent systems that include ''mobility''. Here ''mobility'' means both computation c ...

for reasoning about

mobile code In distributed computing, code mobility is the ability for running Computer program, programs, code or objects to be data migration, migrated (or moved) from one machine or application to another. This is the process of moving mobile code across t ...

. With Moritz Y. Becker and Cédric Fournet, Gordon also designed SecPAL, a

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

specification language A specification language is a formal language in computer science used during systems analysis, requirements analysis, and systems design to describe a system at a much higher level than a programming language, which is used to produce the exec ...

for

policies.

Awards and honours

Gordon's Ph.D. thesis, ''Functional programming and

input/output In computing, input/output (I/O, i/o, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, such as another computer system, peripherals, or a human operator. Inputs a ...

'', won the 1993 Distinguished Dissertation Award of the

British Computer Society image:Maurice Vincent Wilkes 1980 (3).jpg, Sir Maurice Wilkes served as the first President of BCS in 1957. The British Computer Society (BCS), branded BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, since 2009, is a professional body and a learned ...

. His 2000 paper on the ambient calculus subject with Luca Cardelli, "Anytime, Anywhere: Modal Logics for Mobile Ambients", won the 2010

SIGPLAN SIGPLAN is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group (SIG) on programming languages. This SIG explores programming language concepts and tools, focusing on design, implementation, practice, and theory. Its members are progra ...

Most Influential POPL Paper Award.

References

External links

* , Cogna * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Andrew D. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British computer scientists Formal methods people Members of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory Academics of the University of Edinburgh Programming language researchers