Academic Work

This page is Copyright John N. Shutt 1996-1997,2000-2004. Here's what you're allowed to do with it.
Last modified: 15-Aug-04.

I'm currently a graduate (PhD) student in the Computer Science Department at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).  My primary recent research topics have been:

• Abstraction theory, one of my long term interests.  Well, not that long term; only for the last fifteen years or so.  Every once in a while it heats up, then jumps back down to a lower energy state and spins off another project, such as...
  • The Kernel Programming Language, a LISP-ish language that's like Scheme without the second-class objects.  It's been simmering for several years, but recently reached its boiling point and phase-changed into a dissertation topic.

  • Recursive Adaptive Grammars, the central topic of my Master's thesis.

• Self-Modifying Finite Automata, a fascinating model of computation (if you're in to that sort of thing) that Roy Rubinstein and I developed.

I got my Master's degree in CS here at WPI in 1993, and my Bachelor's degree also in CS at WPI in 1988.  My past research interests never go away, even though my primary academic focus may wander away from them.  They're all still with me, in my thoughts, dozens of floppy disks, and stacks of file boxes, going back to college, high school, and even junior high; see my page on Academic Play.