I was raised in Yardley, Pennsylvania literally on the banks of the Delaware River, and after high school I took a break from school and worked in my father's aircraft shop drilling rivets, which is not as exciting as it sounds, and so I left to after a year to attend the Berklee School of Music here in Boston, but after a year I returned to Yardley to work on rivets and teach guitar. Many rivets and many lessons later, and after realizing that I did not want to be either a professional rivet-driller or a professional musician, I decided that a practical education would be a good idea, and so I became a Latin and Greek major at Dickinson College and then got an MA in Classics at Tufts University where I studied Augustan Poetry, especially Vergil's Aeneid. I then decided to switch to Computer Science and got my PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, writing my thesis on E-Unification with Jean Gallier. After coming to BU in 1987, I taught introductory CS and did research on automated deduction (see my publications page) with students Chris Lynch, Alberto Oliart, and David Durand, and with various colleagues in France and Germany. Now I very much enjoying teaching introductory courses in programming and mathematics, focussing on probability and computing (CS 237) and programming language theory and practice (CS 320).

In addition to my teaching and research, I have always gravitated to administrative work. I have served as Director of Undergraduate Studies in the CS Department for quite some time, when I was not occupied with other duties: I served as chairman of the CS department from 1997 to 2000, and as Associate Dean for Student Academic Life in the College of Arts and Sciences from 2005 to 2010. In September 2010 I returned full-time teaching and administration in the CS department.

After many years living west of Boston, in 2009 I returned to the city, and have lived in Rich Hall as part of the Faculty In Residence program since 2011; I host Math Tutoring with another FIR on Tuesday nights, and host musical events in Rich Hall each semester. A few weekends a month I go to Raleigh to spend time with my girlfriend Liz, her three cats, and her family (Liz is a professional photographer and took the best of the pictures below).

Some Diversions

When I am not doing CS or traveling south, here are some things I am interested in and love to talk about:

• Cooking (mostly French, Italian, Thai, and Mexican, basically anything you can modify so that it doesn't require wheat or cow's milk, which I am allergic to); pizza (in a gas-fired pizza oven!);
• Home brewing (finally graduated to all-grain, and enjoy making porters and IPAs mostly)
• Exercise (stretching and yoga, exercise bike and weights, swimming in Fitrec)
• Martial arts and zen meditation; I am Nidan in Shohei-Ryu (formerly Uechi-Ryu) and sometimes meditate;
• Ancient literature and ancient languages (Latin & Greek), particularly religion, mythology, philosophy, and epic; I attempt to keep my languages up by occasionally sitting in on classes with my friends in the Classics Department, who are very patient with this "wanna-be" from the other side of Comm Ave;
• Classical music, particularly recordings of the great pianists of the past (favorites: William Kapell, Glenn Gould, and Dinu Lipatti), the great violinists (favorite: Nathan Milstein), and the great singers (Pavarotti, Gerard Souzay); but I like jazz quite a lot (especially Miles Davis, Louie, Art Pepper, and most sax players), and also Dylan bootlegs, opera, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, almost any piano concerto, country music, the late Beethoven string quartets, any piece with the words "rag," "boogie," or "stomp" in the title, William Byrd, any fugue, Ray Charles, Andrea Bocelli, and Frank Sinatra.
• Blues harmonica: I play blues harmonica in the odd moment, and also sometimes play in a faculty blues band, Fish Worship; my favorite harp players are Little Walter, Kim Wilson, William Clarke, Annie Raines, and Adam Gussow; I learned to play from Adam's YouTube lessons,but now I study occasionally with Annie (of the duo Paul Rishell & Annie Raines). I have lectured at harmonica workshops on using computer and audio technology to improve one's playing and have developed a system of tabulature and posted an extensive set of tabs online in my Tablature Page, plus some research articles on harmonica, ring tones, and other fun things.
• Blues and Ragtime Guitar: I played in a duo ("Little Willy and the Professor") with my friend Will Kraznansky (drawing of one of our last gigs is above left) in my 20's but gave it up for decades, then played enthusiastically until arthritis got in the way in the last couple of years :-(.