Simon Peyton Jones (born 18 January 1958) is a British
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 researches the
implementation
Implementation is the realization of an application, or execution of a plan, idea, model, design, specification, standard, algorithm, or policy.
Industry-specific definitions
Computer science
In computer science, an implementation is a real ...
and
applications
Application may refer to:
Mathematics and computing
* Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks
** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...
of
functional programming languages
In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by applying and composing functions. It is a declarative programming paradigm in which function definitions are trees of expressions that m ...
functional programming
In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by Function application, applying and Function composition (computer science), composing Function (computer science), functions. It is a declar ...
.
Education
Peyton Jones graduated from
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...
Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science
Diploma in Computer Science, originally known as the Diploma in Numerical Analysis and Automatic Computing, was a conversion course in computer science offered by the University of Cambridge. It is equivalent to a master's degree in present-day nom ...
in 1980. He never did a PhD.
Career and research
Peyton Jones worked in industry for two years before serving as a
lecturer
Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...
at
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
and, from 1990 to 1998, as a
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
at the
University of Glasgow
, image = UofG Coat of Arms.png
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
Flag
, latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis
, motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita
, ...
. From 1998 to 2021 he worked as a researcher at
Microsoft Research
Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...
in
Cambridge, England
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became ...
. Since 2021 he has worked at
Epic Games
Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, M ...
as an engineering fellow.
He is a major contributor to the design of the
Haskell
Haskell () is a general-purpose, statically-typed, purely functional programming language with type inference and lazy evaluation. Designed for teaching, research and industrial applications, Haskell has pioneered a number of programming lan ...
programming language, and a lead developer of the
Glasgow Haskell Compiler
The Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC) is an open-source native code compiler for the functional programming language Haskell.
It provides a cross-platform environment for the writing and testing of Haskell code and it supports numerous extensions, ...
(GHC). He is also co-creator of the programming language, designed for intermediate program representation between the language-specific front-end of a compiler and a general-purpose back-end code generator and optimiser. C-- is used in GHC.
He was also a major contributor to the 1999 book ''Cybernauts Awake'', which explored the ethical and spiritual implications of the Internet.
Peyton Jones chairs the Computing At School (CAS) group, an organisation which aims to promote the teaching of computer science at school. Following these efforts, in 2019 he was appointed chair of the newly founded UK
National Centre for Computing Education
The National Centre for Computing Education is a government-funded initiative, offering teacher training and resources for computer science. The National Centre is delivered by a consortium of STEM Learning, Raspberry Pi Foundation and British ...
.
Jones has played a vital role in the development of new
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows, Windows, macOS, Android (operating system), Android and iOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro (comp ...
features since 2003, when he published a paper on user-defined functions. In 2021,
anonymous function
In computer programming, an anonymous function (function literal, lambda abstraction, lambda function, lambda expression or block) is a function definition that is not bound to an identifier. Anonymous functions are often arguments being passed to ...
s and
let expression
In computer science, a "let" expression associates a function definition with a restricted scope.
The "let" expression may also be defined in mathematics, where it associates a Boolean condition with a restricted scope.
The "let" expression may ...
s were made available in the
Office 365
Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name Mic ...
version of Excel as a beta feature.
Honours and awards
In 2004 he was inducted 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 functional programming languages. In 2011 he received membership in the
Academia Europaea
The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences.
The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...
.
In 2011, he and
Simon Marlow
Simon Marlow is a British computer programmer, author, and co-developer of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC). He and Simon Peyton Jones won the SIGPLAN Programming Languages Software Award in 2011 for their work on GHC. Marlow's book Parallel ...
were awarded the
SIGPLAN Programming Languages Software Award
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 ...
for their work on GHC.
He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow in 2013 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Kent in 2017.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2016 One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: and a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society (DFBCS) in 2017.
Peyton Jones was appointed
Officer of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
(OBE) in the
2022 Birthday Honours
The 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours are appointments by some of the 15 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as par ...