Daniel Jackson (computer scientist)

Daniel Jackson (born 1963) is a Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is the principal designer of the Alloy modelling language, and author of the book Software Abstractions: Logic, Language, and Analysis.^[1]

Biography

Jackson was born in London, England, in 1963.^[2] He studied physics at Oxford University, receiving an MA in 1984. After completing his MA, Jackson worked for two years as a software engineer at Logica UK Ltd. He then returned to academia to study computer science at MIT, where he received an SM in 1988, and a PhD in 1992. Following the completion of his doctorate Jackson took up a position as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, which he held until 1997.^[3] He has been on the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT since 1997. Jackson is an avid photographer, and has an interest in the straight photography style. A solo exhibition of his prints was shown at the Newton Free Library in 2006.^[2]

Jackson is the son of software engineering researcher Michael A. Jackson,^[4] developer of Jackson Structured Programming (JSP), Jackson System Development (JSD), and the Problem Frames Approach.

Research

Jackson's research is broadly concerned with improving the dependability of software. He is a proponent of lightweight formal methods.^[5] Jackson and his students developed the Alloy language and its associated Alloy Analyzer analysis tool to provide support for lightweight specification and modelling efforts.^[6] George Hacken, writing in Computing Reviews, called Alloy "a powerful force-multiplier in the war on bugs".^[7]

Between 2004 and 2007, Jackson chaired a multi-year United States National Research Council study on dependable systems.^[8]

Selected publications

• Daniel Jackson, Martyn Thomas, and Lynette I. Millett, Editors. Software for Dependable Systems: Sufficient Evidence? National Academies, Washington, DC, May 2007.
• Daniel Jackson. Software Abstractions: Logic, Language, and Analysis. MIT Press. Cambridge, MA. April 2006. ISBN 0-262-10114-9
• Daniel Jackson. Dependable Software by Design. Scientific American. June 2006.
• Daniel Jackson. Alloy: A Lightweight Object Modelling Notation. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology. Vol. 11, No. 2, April 2002, pp. 256–290.

References

1. ^ Jackson, Daniel (April 2006). Software Abstractions: Logic, Language, and Analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-10114-1. http://www.softwareabstractions.org/. Retrieved 2009-01-10. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Jackson, Daniel. "DANIEL JACKSON". Straight Photography by Daniel Jackson. http://straightphotography.org/articles/bio.html. Retrieved 2009-01-09. 
3. ^ "Prof. Daniel Jackson". CSAIL Software Design Group. http://sdg.csail.mit.edu/people/dnj.html. Retrieved 2009-01-09. 
4. ^ Jackson, Daniel. "Daniel Jackson". CSAIL Faculty Pages. http://people.csail.mit.edu/dnj/. Retrieved 2009-01-09. 
5. ^ Daniel Jackson and Jeannette Wing, "Lightweight Formal Methods", IEEE Computer, April 1996
6. ^ Daniel Jackson, "Alloy: A Lightweight Object Modelling Notation", ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), Volume 11, Issue 2 (April 2002), pp. 256-290
7. ^ "Software Abstractions". The MIT Press. http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10928. Retrieved 2009-01-09. 
8. ^ "Sufficient Evidence? Building Certifiably Dependable Systems". Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. The National Academies. http://sites.nationalacademies.org/cstb/CompletedProjects/CSTB_042247. Retrieved 2009-01-09. 

External links

• Daniel Jackson MIT home page
• Daniel Jackson photography website
• List of publications from the DBLP Bibliography Server.

Persondata
Name	Jackson, Daniel
Alternative names
Short description	American computer scientist
Date of birth	1963
Place of birth	London, England
Date of death
Place of death