Joseph E. Stoy 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 ...

. He initially studied

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 ...

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

. Early in his career, in the 1970s, he worked on

denotational semantics In computer science, denotational semantics (initially known as mathematical semantics or Scott–Strachey semantics) is an approach of formalizing the meanings of programming languages by constructing mathematical objects (called ''denotations'' ...

with

Christopher Strachey Christopher S. Strachey (; 16 November 1916 – 18 May 1975) was a British computer scientist. He was one of the founders of denotational semantics, and a pioneer in programming language design and computer time-sharing.F. J. Corbató, et al., T ...

in the

Programming Research Group The Programming Research Group (PRG) was part of the Oxford University Computing Laboratory (OUCL) in Oxford, England, along with the Numerical Analysis Group, until OUCL became the Department of Computer Science in 2011. The PRG was founded by ...

at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory (now the

Oxford University Department of Computer Science The Department of Computer Science is the computer science department of the University of Oxford, England, which is part of the university's Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division. It was founded in 1957 as the Computing Laboratory. ...

). He was a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and aro ...

. He has also spent time at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT) in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. In 2003, he co-founded

Bluespec Bluespec, Inc. is an American semiconductor device electronic design automation company based in Framingham, Massachusetts, and co-founded in June 2003 by computer scientists Arvind Mithal, professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M ...

, Inc., a United States

electronic design automation Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing Electronics, electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools wo ...

company. It provides a functional

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 ...

named ''Bluespec

SystemVerilog SystemVerilog, standardized as IEEE 1800 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), is a hardware description and hardware verification language commonly used to model, design, simulate, test and implement electronic sy ...

'' (BSV), a

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 ...

variant extended as a high-level

hardware description language In computer engineering, a hardware description language (HDL) is a specialized computer language used to describe the structure and behavior of electronic circuits, usually to design application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and to progra ...

to design electronic chips. His book ''Denotational Semantics: The Scott-Strachey Approach to Programming Language Semantics'' (

MIT Press The MIT Press is the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press publishes a number of academic journals and has been a pioneer in the Open Ac ...

, 1977) is now a classic text. Stoy married Gabrielle Stoy, a mathematician and

Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Lady Margaret Hall (LMH) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, located on a bank of the River Cherwell at Norham Gardens in north Oxford and adjacent to the University Parks. The ...

References

External links

*
Program Verification and Semantics: The Early Work

Strachey and the Oxford Programming Research Group
a talk by Joe Stoy on Christopher Strachey and the Oxford

. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Alumni of the University of Oxford English computer scientists Members of the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty Formal methods people Programming language researchers Computer science writers British expatriates in the United States {{UK-academic-bio-stub