Description:

Wednesday / CS Distinguished Lecture
November 6th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514

Speaker
Nate Foster, Cornell University

Talk Title
The Network is the Computer: A Programming Language Perspective

Abstract
Historically, the fields of programming languages and networking have operated in relative isolation: applications run on end hosts and communicate with each other using standard network protocols. However, the landscape has changed significantly in the past decade, driven by the needs of large-scale systems and the emergence of programmable network hardware. Today, it is possible to design and implement custom network protocols and even to relocate application-level functionality into the network fabric. This talk will discuss the pivotal role that programming languages are playing in modern networks, highlighting how experiences designing domain-specific abstractions and reasoning tools for networks can provide fresh insights for the field of programming languages, too.

Biography
Nate Foster is a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University and a Visiting Researcher at Jane Street. The goal of his research is to develop languages and tools that make it easy for programmers to build secure and reliable systems. His current work focuses on the design and implementation of languages and tools for network programming. In the past he has also worked on bidirectional languages (also known as “lenses”), database query languages, data provenance, type systems, mechanized proof, and formal semantics. He received a PhD in Computer and Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania. His awards include a Sloan Research Fellowship, an NSF CAREER Award, the SIGPLAN Robin Milner Award, SIGCOMM Rising Star Award, and Most Influential Paper Awards at ICFP and POPL.

Research/Interest Areas: Programming Languages and Networking
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