The primary goal of my research is to discover how to design programs, components, and programming systems. I don't know any other way to understand design than to program and re-program and transform small and large programs. As I am getting to understand what happens, I am writing things down in "How to Design Programs", "How to Design Components" and "How to Design Systems." It is after all our duty as academics to find and to disseminate truth.

The secondary goal of my research is to design a programming language that supports the programming styles needed for my primary research. Since I consider "disciplined scripting" a good starting point for getting system off the ground, and since I consider explicit static typing an essential aspect of established, to-be-maintained programs, my research focuses on components, contracts, and sound type disciplines that accommodate my design. This thrust includes the transition from untyped code to typed code. In support of this research, I need a language that can grow -- and that calls for a one-of-a-kind macro technology.

My current specific research projects concern

• component mechanisms and behavioral software contracts
  (with Christos Dimoulas, Carl Eastlund, Robby Findler, and Stevie Strickland);
• the transition from untyped scripts to typed programs
  (with Asumu Takikawa, and Sam Tobin-Hochstadt, Shriram Krishnamurthi);
• improving macro technology for the design of domain-specific language
  (with Ryan Culpepper, Vincent St.-Amour, and Matthew Flatt);
• and semantics (as in explaining and improving reduction semantics and applying it to interesting special cases) (with Stephen Chang, Robby Findler, and Matthew Flatt).

Financial support for my research currently comes from NSF, ARPA, AFOSR, and Mozilla. Past funding sources include CORD, US DoED, Exxon, Microsoft, and Texas ATP.