Scott Smith, a professor of computer science at the Johns Hopkins University, has research interests in a number of areas in programming languages. He served as chair of the Department of Computer Science from 2004 to 2010 and currently serves as its director of graduate studies.
Smith directs the Programming Languages Laboratory at Johns Hopkins, which focuses on fundamental problems in programming languages. Its current work includes the development of demand-driven program analysis, an analysis that extends well-known demand-driven lookup techniques found in first-order program analyses to higher-order programs. Through its Big Bang project, his team aims to create a typed programming language with the feel and convenience of modern scripting languages.
A member of the ACM, Smith has been a panelist and program committee member for many professional conferences. He sits on the editorial board for ACM Computing Surveys and has been a reviewer for numerous conferences and journals.
Smith received his bachelor’s degree in computer science and chemistry from Purdue University in 1983. He then went on to Cornell University, completing a master’s degree and PhD in computer science in 1985 and 1989, respectively. Smith joined the Whiting School of Engineering faculty in 1988.