Jeffrey Outlaw Shallit (born October 17, 1957) is a

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

, number theorist, and a noted critic of

intelligent design Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for its bold attempt to ...

. He is married to Anna Lubiw, also a computer scientist.

Early life and education

Shallit was born in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

in 1957. His father was Joseph Shallit, a journalist and author, and a son of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

immigrants from

Vitebsk Vitebsk or Viciebsk (russian: Витебск, ; be, Ві́цебск, ; , ''Vitebsk'', lt, Vitebskas, pl, Witebsk), is a city in Belarus. The capital of the Vitebsk Region, it has 366,299 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth-largest ci ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

(now in

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

). His mother was Louise Lee Outlaw Shallit, a writer. He has one brother, Jonathan Shallit, a music professor. He earned a

Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in June 1979. He received a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

, also in mathematics, from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in June 1983. His doctoral thesis was entitled ''Metric Theory of Pierce Expansions'' and his advisor was

Manuel Blum Manuel Blum (born 26 April 1938) is a Venezuelan-American computer scientist who received the Turing Award in 1995 "In recognition of his contributions to the foundations of computational complexity theory and its application to cryptography and ...

Advocacy

Since 1996, Shallit has held the position of Vice-President of Electronic Frontier Canada. In 1997, he gained attention for the publication on the Internet of ''Holocaust Revised: Lies of Our Times'' (also called the ''Shallit Report''), a reprint of an article he had written for a Waterloo student publication in 1993, which detailed the backgrounds and past statements of various persons whom he accused of being

Holocaust deniers Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: * ...

, notably

David Irving David John Cawdell Irving (born 24 March 1938) is an English author and Holocaust denier who has written on the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany. His works include ''The Destruction of Dresden'' (19 ...

Fred A. Leuchter Fred Arthur Leuchter Jr. (born February 7, 1943) is an American manufacturer of execution equipment, and a Holocaust denier best known as the author of the Leuchter report, a pseudoscientific document*"Leuchter and Rudolf have published pseudos ...

, and

Eustace Mullins Eustace Clarence Mullins Jr. (March 9, 1923 – February 2, 2010) was an American white supremacist, antisemitic conspiracy theorist, propagandist, Holocaust denier, and writer. A disciple of the poet Ezra Pound, * * * * * * * * * * * * ...

. This triggered a public exchange of letters between him and Irving. Shallit has been a critic of the work of

William Dembski William Albert Dembski (born July 18, 1960) is an American mathematician, philosopher and theologian. He was a proponent of intelligent design (ID) pseudoscience, specifically the concept of specified complexity, and was a senior fellow of the ...

promoting intelligent design. He has coauthored a paper with Wesley Elsberry demonstrating problems with Dembski's mathematical work, and would have appeared as a witness opposing Dembski in the

Kitzmiller v. Dover ''Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District'', 400 Federal Supplement, F. Supp. 2d 707 (M.D. Pa. 2005) was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of ...

trial had Dembski not dropped out.

Professional life

Shallit is currently a Professor in the School of Computer Science at the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario Waterloo is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of three cities in the Regional Municipality ...

and the editor-in-chief of the ''

Journal of Integer Sequences The ''Journal of Integer Sequences'' is a peer-reviewed open-access academic journal in mathematics, specializing in research papers about integer sequences. It was founded in 1998 by Neil Sloane. Sloane had previously published two books on integ ...

''. His primary academic interests are

combinatorics on words Combinatorics on words is a fairly new field of mathematics, branching from combinatorics, which focuses on the study of words and formal languages. The subject looks at letters or symbols, and the sequences they form. Combinatorics on words af ...

formal languages In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language consists of string (computer science), words whose symbol (formal), letters are taken from an alphabet (formal languages), alphabet and are well-formedness, well-formed ...

automata theory Automata theory is the study of abstract machines and automata, as well as the computational problems that can be solved using them. It is a theory in theoretical computer science. The word ''automata'' comes from the Greek word αὐτόματο� ...

, and algorithmic number theory. He has been recognized by the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

as a Distinguished Scientist (2008). His publications include the books ''Algorithmic Number Theory'' (with

Eric Bach Eric Bach is an American computer scientist who has made contributions to computational number theory. Bach completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and got his Ph.D. in computer science from the University o ...

), a noted text on

algorithms In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing c ...

, ''Automatic Sequences: Theory, Applications, Generalizations'' (with ), and ''A Second Course in Formal Languages and Automata Theory''.

References

External links

Home page of Jeffrey O. ShallitShallit's blog, RecursivityElectronic Frontier CanadaHolocaust Revised: Lies of our Times
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shallit, Jeffrey 1957 births Living people American computer scientists American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent American atheists Critics of creationism I. P. Sharp Associates employees IBM employees Scientists from Philadelphia Number theorists University of Waterloo faculty Princeton University alumni Mathematicians from Philadelphia

Early life and education

Advocacy

Professional life

See also

References

External links