Kathleen Shanahan Fisher is an American
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 ...
who specializes in
programming language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language.
The description of a programming ...
s and their implementation.
Professor Fisher is Chair of Computer Science at
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...
and one of the authors of the PADS data description language and the Moby experimental concurrent programming language.
[Curriculum vitae](_blank)
retrieved 2020-02-06. She is a past Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group in Programming Languages (
SIGPLAN
SIGPLAN is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on programming languages.
Conferences
* Principles of Programming Languages (POPL)
* Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI)
* International Symposium on M ...
) and has chaired three of their major conferences,
ICFP The ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP) is an annual academic conference in the field of computer science sponsored by the ACM SIGPLAN, in association with IFIP Working Group 2.8 (Functional Programming). The con ...
in 2004,
OOPSLA
OOPSLA (Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages & Applications) is an annual ACM research conference. OOPSLA mainly takes place in the United States, while the sister conference of OOPSLA, ECOOP, is typically held in Europe. It is opera ...
in 2011, and
PLDI
Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI) is one of the ACM SIGPLAN's most important conferences. The precursor of PLDI was the Symposium on Compiler Optimization, held July 27–28, 1970 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Ch ...
in 2019. She co-founded SIGPLAN’s Programming Language Mentoring Workshop (PLMW) Series in an effort to increase the number of women and underrepresented minorities in computer science and was Co-Chair of the Computing Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women for three years.
[Research Page](_blank)
retrieved 2020-02-06. In 2010 she was elected as a
Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
of 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 ...
"for contributions to programming language design, theory, and practice, and for service to the computing community." She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of
Harvey Mudd College
Harvey Mudd College (HMC) is a private college in Claremont, California, focused on science and engineering. It is part of the Claremont Colleges, which share adjoining campus grounds and resources. The college enrolls 902 undergraduate students ...
.
Early life and education
Fisher was born in 1969 in
San Marino, California
San Marino is a residential city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It was incorporated on April 25, 1913. At the 2010 census the population was 13,147. The city is one of the wealthiest places in the nation in terms of househol ...
. Her father was an investment professional and her mother was a homemaker. She graduated from
San Marino High School
San Marino High School (SMHS) is a public high school in San Marino, California, United States, and the only high school in the San Marino Unified School District, Los Angeles County. According to the 2015 California Academic Performance Index Su ...
before attending
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
.
In her freshman year she decided to take a computer science course to learn how to use the
IBM PS/2 Model 60 computer her dad had bought her.
[CRA Interview](_blank)
retrieved 2020-02-06. Interested in the material she took another class and came across the
Halting Problem
In computability theory, the halting problem is the problem of determining, from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running, or continue to run forever. Alan Turing proved in 1936 that a g ...
. She found the proof behind it simple yet elegant and the experience marked a turning point in her interest in computer science.
She graduated Stanford with distinction in 1991 with a B.Sc in Math and Computational Science and stayed on at Stanford for her graduate studies.
In 1996 she graduated with a Ph.D in Computer Science under the supervision of Dr.
John C. Mitchell
John Clifford Mitchell is professor of computer science and (by courtesy) electrical engineering at Stanford University. He has published in the area of programming language theory and computer security.John C. Mitchellwas the Vice Provost for T ...
.
Her thesis was entitled Type Systems for Object-Oriented Languages.
[Ph.D Thesis](_blank)
retrieved 2020-02-06.
Career
Early career
After graduation Fisher started working at
AT&T Labs Research
AT&T Labs is the research & development division of AT&T, the telecommunications company. It employs some 1,800 people in various locations, including: Bedminster NJ; Middletown, NJ; Manhattan, NY; Warrenville, IL; Austin, TX; Dallas, TX; Atlan ...
.
In April 2002 she was promoted to Principal Member of Technical Staff. From July 2008 to March 2011, she was also a Consulting Professor in Computer Science at Stanford.
DARPA
In 2011 she left AT&T Labs to become a Program Manager at
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Adv ...
. At DARPA she founded and ran th
High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems (HACMS)and th
Probabilistic Programming for Advancing Machine Learning (PPAML)programs. The HACMS program focused on leveraging
Formal Methods
In computer science, formal methods are mathematically rigorous techniques for the specification, development, and verification of software and hardware systems. The use of formal methods for software and hardware design is motivated by the expec ...
to secure military vehicles from hacking. The program utilized a red team of hackers which attempted to break into a quadcopter with full knowledge of the system using any method besides a physical connection. Initially, the red team was able to quickly compromise the quadcopter, but by the end of the program they were not able to break into the quadcopter at all.
[Silver Bullets Interview](_blank)
retrieved 2020-02-06. This program was a huge success and has since been transitioned to more complex vehicles such as Boeing’s
Unmanned Little Bird.
Fisher left DARPA in July 2014 but continues to chair their ISAT Study Group.
Tufts University
Concurrent to her research at DARPA, Fisher accepted a job as a Professor of Computer Science at Tufts University where she still works today as the Department Chair. Her current research focuses on developing
domain-specific language
A domain-specific language (DSL) is a computer language specialized to a particular application domain. This is in contrast to a general-purpose language (GPL), which is broadly applicable across domains. There are a wide variety of DSLs, ranging f ...
s,
program synthesis In computer science, program synthesis is the task to construct a program that provably satisfies a given high-level formal specification. In contrast to program verification, the program is to be constructed rather than given; however, both fields ...
, and using formal methods to secure software.
At Tufts she has taught Programming Languages as well as seminars in Programming Language Design.
Honors and awards
Fisher has received many honors, including:
* 2021 Fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
.
* SIGPLAN Distinguished Service Award, 2013.
* Distinguished PLDI Paper, 2012.
* SIGPLAN CACM Research Highlights Nominated Paper, 2012.
* PLDI Best Paper Award, 2011.
* ACM Fellow, 2010.
* SIGPLAN CACM Research Highlights Nominated Paper, 2008.
* ACM Distinguished Scientist, 2007.
* Best Research Paper Award, KDD, 2000.
* NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, 1996, declined.
* The University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1996, declined.
* The Student Service Award, Stanford Computer Science Department, 1995.
* Hertz Foundation Fellowship, 1994 to 1996.
* Finch Fellowship, 1993.
* NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, 1991 to 1994.
References
External links
Home page*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fisher, Kathleen Shanahan
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
American computer scientists
American women computer scientists
Stanford University alumni
Tufts University faculty
Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American women academics
21st-century American women