The WASP Group in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington conducts groundbreaking research in the design, implementation, and theory of programming languages, compilers, programming tools, and programming environments.
We encourage you to contact group members for more information.
Current Members
- Faculty
- Graduate Students
- Post-Doctoral Researchers
Publications (a hopefully-complete list in reverse chronological order)
Current Projects and Collaborators
This list tends to lag reality, but we're excited about our work on the following:
- Atomic
- Language design, implementation, and semantics for transactions in modern programming languages
- MemModel
- Dealing with relaxed memory-consistency models for high-level programming languages and modern software development
- Object Ownership
- Improved encapsulation for object-oriented languages
- Webby
- Better support for robust and secure client-side web applications (JavaScript), in collaboration with the RiSE group at Microsoft Research
- Lock Capabilities
- Flexible type system for preventing deadlock in multi-threaded code
Many of our current projects and members span multiple research groups. The boundaries are entirely fuzzy by design. For consistency, we host each current project on only one web page, so in addition to the projects above, be sure to check out:
- Software Engineering
- (see also here)
- Sampa
- All the current Sampa projects relate to software quality and include WASP members in the collaboration
- Nuage
- Primarily a databases project where we collaborate on the Parallax tools
UW graduate students are encouraged to explore research areas that interest them; having "close research neighbors" creates many opportunities.
Past Major Projects
This list includes important projects pursued by us that serve as the intellectual background and foundation for our current projects:
- ArchJava
- An extension to Java allowing the high-level architecture of an application to be expressed directly in the code, and checked automatically by the typechecker.
- Cecil
- A purely OO language incorporating multiple dispatching, a classless object model, predicate objects, and a flexible static type system
- Clamp
- Module systems for systems code to encapsulate architectural assumptions
- Cyclone
- A safe C-level programming language with user-controlled checking and performance
- Diamond, F(EML)
- An extension to EML supporting flexible parameterized modules
- Diesel
- A next-generation object-oriented language combining modularity with extensibility
- DyC and Calpa
- Dynamic compilation for C
- EML
- An extension to ML that generalizes ML's datatype and function constructs to support OO-style extensibility while retaining modular typechecking and compilation
- HydroJ
- A language for distributed messaging using semistructured data
- MultiJava and RMJ
- Java extensions supporting multiple dispatching and open classes while retaining modular typechecking and compilation
- Rhodium and Cobalt
- A framework for provably correct compiler optimizations
- SCF
- Automatically constructing staged compilers
- Seminal
- An approach to searching for good compiler error-messages in advanced languages
- TE-ML
- Transactional events for a mostly-functional language
- Vortex
- A multilingual optimizing compiler for OO languages
- Whirlwind
- A multilingual optimizing compiler supporting OO languages, staged compilation, and provably correct optimizations
Regular Activities and Courses
- Group meeting
- The WASP Group meeting, an informal venue for work-in-progress, meets weekly throughout the academic year. The time and place varies each quarter to avoid other conflicts. Contact us for the current information; we would be happy to have you attend.
- CSE590P
- A graduate seminar / reading-group on programming languages, has a different theme each quarter
- CSE505
- A graduate "quals" course on programming-language concepts, offered annually
- CSE501
- A graduate "quals" course on program analysis and compilers, offered roughly every other year
- CSE401
- An undergraduate compilers course, offered 2-3 quarters each year
- CSE341
- An undergraduate programming-languages course, offered 3 quarters each year
We also have advanced special-topics courses on a less regular schedule. Here are the offerings from the last several years:
- Sp07: On the Design and Implementation of Static Analysis Tools (Tom Ball, Microsoft Research)
- Wi07: Advanced Topics in Programming Languages (Grossman)
- Sp06: Formal Verification of Computer Systems (Shaz Qadeer, Microsoft Research)
- Wi04: Language-Based Techniques for Improving C-Level Software Quality (Grossman)
- Sp02: Programming Language Design Lab (Chambers)
Joining Us
We are seeking new group members, both to improve and to complement our current initiatives. If you're excited about research that leads to better (more reliable, more extensible, more secure, more flexible, more efficient) software, the WASP Group might be a good match.
- UW CSE Undergrads: we may have "490" projects that meet your interests. Come talk to us.
- UW CSE Grads: Plenty of "quals" projects are available. Come talk to us. Also, we encourage anyone interested to attend 590P and/or the WASP Group meeting.
- Prospective Graduate Students: If you're not currently at UW but you're thinking about graduate school and programming languages, we encourage you to apply. Feel free to contact us with any questions about our research group or UW. However, please understand that department admissions are handled centrally by the department, and we cannot make any offers or guarantees regarding admission. Information on the department's Ph.D. program and applying to it is available here.
Alumni
We are proud and honored to have many great and successful former group members. Here is a list of our Ph.D. graduates:
- Ben Lerner (now a Brown post-doc)
- Sorin Lerner (now at UCSD)
- Todd Millstein (now at UCLA)
- Jonathan Aldrich (now at CMU)
- Vass Litvinov (now at Reservoir Labs, Inc.)
- Matthai Philipose (now at Intel Research)
- Markus Mock (now at Google)
- Michael Ernst (now at UW)
- David Grove (now at IBM Research)
- Jeff Dean (now a Google Fellow)
We are also proud of Craig Chambers, who advised almost all of the students above. Craig remains in contact with the group while working full-time at Google in Seattle.