Academic Work

This page is Copyright John N. Shutt 1996–1997,2000–2004, 2009, 2012, 2019–2020.  Here's what you're allowed to do with it.
Last modified: 27-Aug-20.

I was a PhD graduate of 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 twenty five 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 simmeredfor several years, then 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 Doctorate in CS here at WPI in 2011, and my Master's degree in 1993 and Bachelor's in 1988, also in CS at WPI.  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.