My current research interests are in functional programming, reasoning and multimedia. A list of all my publications is available here. Specific projects that I am working on include:

Refactoring Erlang programs: Wrangler. Refactoring Haskell Programs: HaRe. Reasoning with Diagrams.

The ProTest project Extending XML languages: PDXML. Blogging on O'Reilly Broadcast

I am also interested in working with industry, and have two Knowledge Transfer Partnerships with Erlang Solutions: the first (now completed) on refactoring and components for Erlang, the second on using e-learning technologies in high-quality online training.

Some recent presentations and talks

Some recent talks and presentations and talks, in a variety of formats.

Improving your test code with Wrangler, presented at the Erlang User Cconference 2009: slides, draft paper. Video and slides of a recent presentation on Wrangler, at the Erlang eXchange in London. A presentation on Refactoring Functional Programs at the first international Workshop on Refactoring Tools, Berlin, July 2007. A talk on Refactoring Erlang Programs at EUC 2006, November 2006. A course on Refactoring Functional Programs at the 5th International Summer School on Advanced Functional Programming in Tartu, August 2004.

Recent (January 2010) papers from PADL and PEPM about clone detection in Erlang and Haskell. A paper on Testing-framework-aware Refactoring from the 3rd Workshop on Refactoring Tools, Orlando, October 2009. Recent YouTube interview with me on the OReillyGMT channel. A paper on Declarative extensions of XML languages presented at DocEng 2007. A Comparative Study of Refactoring Haskell and Erlang Programs (From the Sixth IEEE SCAM Workshop, Sept. 2006) A talk on The expressiveness of spider diagrams, based on a JLC paper.

Books

I have written four books on functional programming.

Erlang Programming is an introduction to Erlang, co-written with Francesco Cesarini and published by O'Reilly. Miranda: The Craft of Functional Programming is an introductory text on programming in Miranda: available on demand.

Haskell: The Craft of Functional Programming (Second Edition), an introductory text on programming in Haskell. Type Theory and Functional Programming: an introduction to Martin-Löf-style constructive type theory: CafePress download.

Postgrad research students

I am very keen to recruit research students to work with me on these topics, and particularly in refactoring, extending XML-based languages and reasoning with diagrams. The Lab's website has lots of stuff about becoming a postgrad student and some suggested projects in my and related areas of interest.

Current students are working on refactoring for Haskell, refactoring for Erlang, and the formal verification of refactoring transformations.

Functional Programming in Education

I work to promote the use of functional programming in education. I was chair of the conference on Functional and Declarative Programming in Education in 2005 (Tallin), 2002 (Pittsburgh) and 1999 (Paris). I have written texts on introductory functional programming in Haskell and Miranda as well as a problem solving approach for beginning functional programmers.

I am book reviews editor for the Journal of Functional Programming. If you are interested in becoming a reviewer, please see books currently seeking reviewers and book review guidelines. At the University of Kent I play an active role in the Functional Programming Group.

Teaching innovation

I am an enthusiastic user of the ProfCast software for recording lectures in sync with their slide presentations. You can see examples at CO524, an introductory course on programming language technology. If you are trying these out, it's best to ignore the first; I was just getting used to the microphone on my PowerBook.

A student from the course says "I'm finding during revision that the recordings are immensely useful, if I come across a topic that isn't well explained in the slides or my notes it's great to be able to listen back to your explanations with the slides on screen and write new notes for revision purposes."

Other research

Other research that I have been involved with recently includes work in computer algebra, verification and constructive type theory:

Computer Algebra and Reasoning: Atypical. Functional Programming and Software Engineering. Verification of functional programs

Functional Reactive Programming. Interval Temporal Logic. Functional programming and Martin-Löf type theory.