Call for Employment

I (Chris) am looking for employment, ideally a postdoctoral research position, starting Fall 2015 (if in Pittsburgh) or anywhere in Spring to Fall 2016 (if outside of Pittsburgh). The position must be in the U.S. or Canada. Here is my CV. Below I list (more succinctly) what I can offer and what I desire from such a position.

My qualifications that I would be interested in using in a research position:

• Ph.D. thesis project involving the design, theory, and implementation of a programming language for the design of games and interactive simulations.
• Expertise in programming language theory and design, with a working knowledge of implementation techniques
• Particular expertise in logic programming and functional programming
• Expertise in formal logics and proof theory, including the design of new logics
• Experience mechanizing large formal proofs in Twelf and some experience with other proof assistants (Agda, Coq, Abella, Isabelle/HOL)
• Expertise in using and reasoning about dependent types, including working familiarity with homotopy type theory.
• Programming skill in Standard ML, OCaml, JavaScript, Lua, C, Haskell, Prolog, and others; an ability to pick up unfamiliar languages quickly
• Familiarity with the existing space of tools for hobbyist digital game creation, including Twine, Unity, Stencyl, and Inform 7.
• Familiarity with the space of game design theory and practice in and outside of academia, especially with respect to interactive fiction.
• Experience authoring interactive fiction in Inform 7, Twine, and JavaScript. Experience creating graphical games with Lua/LOVE2D, Standard ML, Unity, and Stencyl.
• Familiarity with AI research as it pertains to planning, multi-agent systems, and formal calculi for events and simulations.
• Familiarity with formal treatments of concurrency and distributed systems in terms of desired properties of such systems and approaches to programming models for them.
• Ability to work quickly through a large body of academic literature and communicate findings.
• Daily experience with Git and GitHub; more stale experience with other version control software.
• Experience speaking publicly about research to both research and non-research communities.
• Strong interest in democratizing academic work by creating publicly accessible (and free) creation tools, libraries, and educational resources.

What I want from a postdoctoral position basically amounts to winding up in a good jumping-off position for research/tenure-track faculty applications. More specifically:

• A mentor with strong interest in publishing at top venues and a recent record of publishing with mentees.
• A collaborative environment where grad students and faculty communicate easily with one another about their ideas and progress.
• The ability to work with my mentor on formulating and iterating upon a research topic, not having one handed to me wholesale.
• Technical mentorship on any of the following topics:
  • AI for games: procedural content generation, multi-agent systems, social/dialogue modeling
  • Computational systems inspired by multicellular organisms; decentralized distributed systems
  • Computational approaches to generative art or other algorithmic media
  • Applied epistemology (e.g. in decision-theoretic simulations)
  • Narratology and literary theory
  • Computational approaches to dramaturgy, choreography, conducting, or other performing arts with multiple components that need to be synchronized
  • Mixed-initiative design tools
  • Collaborative storytelling/roleplaying
  • Human-computer interaction as it pertains to the design of tools for complex tasks, such as programming and game creation
  • Natural language generation for emergent narratives or dialogue
• Personal/logistical mentorship on any of the following topics:
  • Writing grant applications
  • Writing impactful research papers
  • Applying for research/tenure-track faculty positions
  • Advising graduate students
  • Connecting with potential collaborators

My only deal-breaker, aside from time and location constraints, is if your lab has 0 women in it.

If you think we'd make a great match, send me an email!