Hey! I’m Alexi Turcotte, and I’m currently finishing up a Master’s at the University of Waterloo, in Canada. In the Fall, I’ll be starting a PhD at Northeastern University in Boston, MA, USA.

I find that I’ve mostly erred on the more theoretical PL research, and indeed the focus of my Master’s research is on formalizing a C FFI and quantifying the undefined behaviour one would expect from such a system. I’ve also worked on typed shapes (along with Ellen Arteca) and more broadly on gradual typing. On the more practical side, I was involved with an open source UML to compiler called Umple, which is what really sparked my interest in PL as a field.

I come from a pretty small town in Northern Ontario, so I’m really excited by the opportunity to visit Amsterdam! I’ve heard many great things about the city, and am looking forward to trying some real waffles. And the coffee in North America really doesn’t compare to the European variety. I had the chance to attend OOPSLA (held in Vancouver, Canada this past October), and really enjoyed that experience and learned a lot. Attending talks, meeting the researchers behind the research, and making new friends are all thing that I look forward to in Amsterdam. There’s nothing quite like a conference to get up to speed on current research, and cook up new projects! Waffles first, though.

I look forward to seeing you all around! If you want to chat, I should be pretty easy to make out: I’m the (reasonably*) tall guy with the sunglasses.

See you around,

Alexi

*: though perhaps not so tall in the Netherlands…