Andrew Wilson Appel (born 1960) is the Eugene Higgins Professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. He is especially well known because of his

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...

books, the ''Modern Compiler Implementation in ML'' () series, as well as ''Compiling With Continuations'' (). He is also a major contributor to the

Standard ML of New Jersey Standard ML of New Jersey (SML/NJ; Standard Meta-Language of New Jersey) is a compiler and integrated development environment for the programming language Standard ML. It is written in Standard ML, except for the runtime system in C language. It ...

compiler, along with David MacQueen, John H. Reppy, Matthias Blume and others and one of the authors of ''

Rog-O-Matic Rog-O-Matic is a bot developed in 1981 to play and win the video game '' Rogue'', by four graduate students in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh: Andrew Appel, Leonard Hamey, Guy Jacobson and Michael Loren ...

''.

Biography

Andrew Appel is the son of mathematician

Kenneth Appel Kenneth Ira Appel (October 8, 1932 – April 19, 2013) was an American mathematician who in 1976, with colleague Wolfgang Haken at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, solved the four-color theorem, one of the most famous problems ...

, who proved the

Four-Color Theorem In mathematics, the four color theorem, or the four color map theorem, states that no more than four colors are required to color the regions of any map so that no two adjacent regions have the same color. ''Adjacent'' means that two regions shar ...

in 1976. Appel graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

from

in 1981 after completing a senior thesis, titled "Investigation of galaxy clustering using an asymptotically fast N-body algorithm", under the supervision of Nobel laureate James Peebles. He later received a Ph.D. (computer science) at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

, in 1985. He became an

ACM Fellow ACM Fellowship is an award and fellowship that recognises outstanding members of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The title of ACM Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals ...

in 1998, due to his research of programming languages and

s. In 1981, Appel developed a better approach to the -body problem in

linearithmic In theoretical computer science, the time complexity is the computational complexity that describes the amount of computer time it takes to run an algorithm. Time complexity is commonly estimated by counting the number of elementary operations p ...

instead of quadratic time. From July 2005 to July 2006, he was a visiting researcher at the ''

Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique The National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) () is a French national research institution focusing on computer science and applied mathematics. It was created under the name French Institute for Research in Comp ...

'' (INRIA),

Rocquencourt Rocquencourt refers to two places in France: * Rocquencourt, Yvelines Rocquencourt () is a former commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. On 1 January 2019, it was merged into the new commune Le Chesna ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, on sabbatical from Princeton University. Andrew Appel campaigns on issues related to the interaction of law and computer technology. He testified in the penalty phase of the Microsoft antitrust case in 2002. He is opposed to the introduction of some computerized

voting machine A voting machine is a machine used to record votes in an election without paper. The first voting machines were mechanical but it is increasingly more common to use ''electronic voting machines''. Traditionally, a voting machine has been defi ...

s, which he deemed untrustworthy. In 2007, he received attention when he purchased a number of voting machines for the purpose of investigating their security. In 2024, he testified as an expert on voting machines in federal court hearings that led to a preliminary injunction disallowing New Jersey's “county line” system that was alleged to provide an unfair advantage to candidates backed by county political party organizations.

References

External links

Website at Princeton
1960 births Living people American computer scientists Carnegie Mellon University alumni Princeton University faculty Programming language researchers {{US-compu-bio-stub