About Me
I was born and raised in London, Ontario, Canada, and therefore I’m forever obligated to say “no, the other London” when this fact comes up in conversation. In London, I completed my public school education and earned my bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario. I then moved progressively northeastward to earn my master’s degree at the University of Waterloo and my doctoral degree at Queen’s University.
My first job had me working as a research assistant at Western, where the late Helmut Jürgensen kindly introduced me to the world of academia. My desk was located in a penthouse office, which remains the coolest office I’ve ever worked in.
Upon leaving Western, I began as a graduate student at Waterloo. My research was supervised by Jeffrey Shallit. After graduating, I was hired on to be a sessional instructor for the summer, where I had my first real exposure to teaching. I was assigned to teach a huge multi-section computer science course, in what might be called the “trial by fire” approach to pedagogy.
Following my stint at Waterloo, I became a PhD candidate (and, for one term, a teaching fellow) at Queen’s. I had the good fortune to work with Kai Salomaa and some close friends in the Formal Languages and Automata Theory Group, in spite of a rather unfortunate pandemic unfolding midway through my studies.
After a fully online, pandemic-era academic hiring season, I was exceedingly fortunate to join the Department of Computer Science at St. Francis Xavier University immediately upon earning my PhD. There I remain as an assistant professor, the director of FLAReLab, and the resident “theory guy”, enjoying the work I do with the support of great colleagues and inquisitive students.
Personal Interests
Despite my being a professor of computer science, I try to minimize my reliance on technology in my life. I read books voraciously, and I enjoy listening to music on vinyl records. I’m a fan of board games, but I also play video games from time to time. I’m an avid traveller.
I occasionally watch hockey, and my favourite team (for better or for worse) is the Toronto Maple Leafs. Some of my other interests include genealogy, heraldry, numismatics, philately, vexillology, and language learning—specifically French and, to a lesser extent, Latin.
Outside of academia, I’m perhaps most well-known as the curator of a unique collection of memorabilia from the Montréal 1976 Olympics, the first Olympics to be held in Canada.
Vital Statistics
My Erdős number is 2 (via Paul Erdős → Jeffrey Shallit → me) and my account balance at the Bank of San Serriffe is 0x$1.00.