I am Emeritus Professor of Computer Science, at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
My research lies in the intersection of logic, programming languages, software engineering, and security. With collaborators I develop formal models and software tools that help people understand and verify the properties of their systems — from security policies and protocols to complex program behaviors. Our recent work focuses on proof assistants and model-finding and thus on the interplay between first-order and higher-order logical techniques. While our work is grounded in rigorous formal methods, we emphasize accessibility: our slogan is : "you don't have to be a logician to use formal methods".
I've been fortunate to have gifted PhD students: Patricia Johann, Claudio Gutierrez, Tim Nelson, and Salman Saghafi. And it's been a great pleasure to work with brilliant collaborators, notably from Brown, CNRS, ENS Lyon, INRIA, MITRE, Princeton, and WPI.
My work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Security Agency, the Office of Naval Research, and the Department of Education.
I taught for 41 years, at Dartmouth College (1982–84), Wesleyan University (1984–2002), and WPI (2002–2023). I retired from classroom teaching in 2023. Most recently at WPI I was University Ombuds from 2014 to 2023, chaired the 2013-14 Task Force on Academic Promotion, and served on the Institutional Research Board and the 2019-20 Task Force on the Status of NTT Faculty.
I'm still doing research and advising WPI students through my current appointment as Affiliate Professor. I also have a recent enthusiasm for adult education, as a coordinator for ALL, the Academy for Lifelong Learning of Cape Cod.
Computer Science Department
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
dd at wpi dot edu