Samson Abramsky has made seminal contributions to the mathematical foundations of computation. His outstanding achievement is his development of game semantics as a theory of computational processes which exposes the mathematical structure of the information flow between them. This led to powerful applications in the study of programming languages, offering decisive new insights into the nature of sequentiality, state, control, and many other computational features. It is now leading in turn to new developments in computer-assisted program analysis and verification.
An important strand, which also stands as a contribution to logic, is a generalisation of Girard’s Geometry of Interaction, leading to a new genre of full completeness theorems, which characterise the ‘space of proofs’ of a logic.
Previously, Samson made important contributions to abstract interpretation, domain theory, lambda calculus and concurrency. He continues to shed light over a broad range of topics by sharp and creative insights, breaking new ground, and bringing order and unity to existing work. His current work mainly concerns quantum information and foundations, especially the mathematical theory of contextuality and non-locality.
Professional position
- Professor of Computer Science, Department of Computer Science, University College London (UCL)
Subject groups
- Computer sciences
Computer science (excl engineering aspects)
