About me

I am a lecturer in Cornell's computer science department.

I'm interested in the process of programming, and in tools and techniques that can help programmers design software that is correct, secure, and efficient.

I will receive my Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2013, under the guidance of Andrew Myers. I received a BA in mathematics and a BS in computer science from the University of Rochester in 2003. I also received an MA in mathematics from the University of Rochester in 2004.

My Ph.D. research focuses on building decentralized distributed systems that guarantee strong security properties. I am a lead developer of Fabric, a programming language and runtime system that use information flow analysis to protect users' information, even in the presence of partially trusted code running on a partially trusted platform.

Teaching

Instructor — Design and Analysis of Algorithms (CS 4820, Summer 2013)
Greedy algorithms, dynamic programming, divide and conquer, NP completeness, undecidability, proofs of correctness, asyptotic complexity.
Instructor — Object Oriented Programming and Data Stuctures (CS 2110)
Java, object oriented programming, design patterns, introductory data structures and algorithms, GUI programming.
Teaching Assistant — Advanced Programming Languages (CS 6110)
Operational semantics, denotational semantics, language features and translation, type systems.
Teaching Assistant — Honors Calculus (Math 171-174)
Proofs and formal reasoning, axiomatic definition of real numbers, limits, derivatives and integrals, multivariate calculus, linear algebra.
Teaching Assistant — Computer Models and Limitations (CS 280)
Formal languages and automata, pumping lemmas, the Chomsky hierarchy, Turing machines and algorithmic universality, noncomputability and undecidability.

Publications

Sharing Mobile Code Securely With Information Flow Control (Oakland 2012).
We introduce a new architecture for secure mobile code, with which developers can securely use, publish, and share mobile code across trust domains. This architecture enables new kinds of distributed applications, and makes it easier to securely reuse and evolve code from untrusted providers.
Fabric: A Platform for Secure Distributed Computation and Storage (SOSP 2009).
Fabric is a new system and language for building secure distributed information systems. It is a decentralized system that allows heterogeneous network nodes to securely share both information and computation resources despite mutual distrust.

Other Interests

When I'm not working I'm often playing the piano, playing board games, watching classic movies, hiking or camping, or engaging in political discussions. I also have a few unfinished programming projects that I poke at every now and again: