David Walker

David Walker

Professor
Princeton Computer Science
Department Representative for Undergraduate Affairs

Office Hours: web calendar or contact Colleen Kenny-McGinley

Note: I am not looking for new students in the upcoming year. However, we have a new faculty member, Mae Milano, who will be joining the Princeton Computer Science Department in Spring 2024. Mae is looking for new students and I encourage you to consider her!

Publications: Chronological, By Topic, CV, Students & Co-authors 

Selected Projects: 

FLM: Verifying dynamic data planes
MnMs: Foundations and Applications of Modular Network Verification
MineSweeper: A Network Verification Tool
Propane: A Language for Correct-by-construction Network Configuration
Frenetic: Programming Languages and Abstractions for Software-Defined Networking
Forest: Language support for managing file system fragments
Yarra: Defense against non-control data attacks
PADS: Processing ad hoc data sources 
Zap: Producing reliable software in the presence of transient faults
Polymer: Compositional program monitoring
AspectML: A functional aspect-oriented programming language
Plato: Logical reasoning about programs
TAL: Typed assembly language

Courses

COS 598A: Principles of Programming Languages (Spring 23)

COS 598A: Network Verification (Spring 19)

COS 510: Programming Languages (Fall 02, Fall 03, Spring 14)

COS 326:  Functional Programming (Fall 12, Fall 13, Fall 20)

COS 441: Programming Languages (Fall 05, Fall 07, Fall 08, Fall 11)

COS 597C: Parallelism (Fall 10, with David August)

COS Independent Work (Fall 07- Spring 09)

COS 226: Introduction to Algorithms and Data Structures (Spring 07, Spring 11)

COS 320: Compiling Techniques (Spring 03, Spring 04, Spring 05, Spring 06)

COS 597B:  Computer Security Foundations (Fall 04)

COS 598E: Foundations of Language-Based Security (Spring 02). 

TACL Seminar: Princeton's research seminar on programming languages and compiler technology

General Academic Service

Microsoft Think Tank on University Relations. 2009.
Core member, CCC Visioning Study on Multi-level Approaches to Reliability. 2008-2010.
Associate Editor for ACM TOPLAS. June 2007-.
ACM POPL Publicity Chair. POPL 03-POPL 06.
ACM POPL Industrial Relations Chair. POPL 16-POPL 20.
ACM SIGPLAN CARES. Inaugural Co-chair. 2020-

Program Committees & Summer Schools

[2018] POPL 2018 (PC)  

 

[2017] PLOS 2017 (PC), SOSR 2017 (PC)

[2016] ICFP 2016 (PC), PLDI 2016 (PC)

[2015] POPL 2015 (Program Chair)

[2014] PLDI 2014 (PC)

 

[2013] POPL 13 (PC), OBT 13 (General Chair), OCAML 13 (PC), WRIPE 13 (PC)

 

[2012] POPL 12 (ERC), PODS 12 (ERC), OBT 12 (Program/General Chair), PLPV 2012 (PC), WRiPE 12 (PC)

 

[2011] ESOP 11 (PC)

 

[2010] PLDI 10 (PC)

 

[2009] OOPSLA 09 (PC)

 

[2008] IBM/NJPLS PL Day (PC)

 

[2007] POPL 07 (PC), CGO 07 (PC), FOOL/WOOD 07 (PC), TFP 07 (PC), PLAS 07 (PC).

 

[2006] SPACE 06 (Program Co-Chair), ICALP 06, FOAL 06, Summer School on Language-Based Techniques for Concurrent and Distributed Software  (Steering Committee).

 

[2005] FOAL 05 (Program Chair), TLDI 05, NJPLS (Program Chair), Summer School on Reliable Computing (Organizer).

 

[2004] ICFP 04, LRRP 04, FOAL 04, NJPLS (Host), Summer School on Software Security (Organizer).

 

[2003] NJPLS (Host), Summer School on Foundations of Security (Invited speaker).

 

[2002] PEPM 02 (PC), NJPLS (Program Chair), Summer School on Foundations of Internet Security. (Invited speaker).

Awards

Frenetic: A Network Programming Language. Nate Foster, Rob Harrison, Michael J. Freedman, Christopher Monsanto, Jennifer Rexford, Alec Story and David Walker. ACM SIGPLAN Most Influential Paper of ICFP'11. A 10-year retrospective award. Awarded in August, 2021 at ICFP 2021.

Data-driven Inference of Representation Invariants. Anders Miltner, Saswat Padhi, Todd Millstein, and David Walker. ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI). June 2020. ACM SIGPLAN PLDI 2020 distinguished paper award.

PhD Advisee Ryan Beckett wins the following awards for his thesis entitled Network Control Plane Synthesis and Verification

  • 2019 ACM SIGPLAN John C Reynolds Dissertation Award (Best thesis in the field of Programming Languages)
  • 2019 ACM SIGCOMM Dissertation Award (Best thesis in the field of Networking)
  • 2019 ACM Dissertation Award, Honorable Mention (Runner-up, with one other, for best thesis across all of Computer Science)

Don't Mind the Gap: Bridging Network-wide Objectives and Device-level Configurations (Brief Reflections on Abstractions for Network Programming). Ryan Beckett, Ratul Mahajan, Todd Millstein, Jitu Padhye and David Walker. ACM Computer and Communications Review (CCR), Volume 49, Issue 5, Oct 2019. Invited editorial in the special issue on the first fifty years of ACM SIGCOMM.

Don't Mind the Gap: Bridging Network-wide Objectives and Device-level Configurations. Ryan Beckett, Ratul Mahajan, Todd Millstein, Jitu Padhye and David Walker. ACM SIGCOMM 2016. ACM SIGCOMM best paper award.

Cacheflow: Dependency-aware rule caching for software-defined networks. SOSR 2016. Naga Katta, Omid Alipourfard, Jennifer Rexford and David Walker. ACM SOSR 2016 best paper award. ACM SIGPLAN Research Highlight.  Selected in September 2008 for POPL 2006 paper entitled "The Next 700 Data Description Languages." (1 of 5 papers initially selected from 2006-2008).  Official nomination.

ACM SIGPLAN Research Highlight.  Selected in September 2008 for PLDI 2007 paper on entitled "Fault-tolerant Typed Assembly Language."  (1 of 5 papers initially selected from 2006-2008).  Official nomination.

Most Influential 1998 POPL Paper Award.  (pdf)  Awarded after 10 years consideration at POPL 2008. Also see our journal paper on this topic (pdf).

PLDI 2007 Best Paper Award (pdf). June 2007.

Emerson Junior Faculty Award for Excellence in Research and Teaching.  May 2005.

Alfred P. Sloan Fellow.  Sept 2004-Sept 2006.

NSF Career Award.  July 2003.

Awards Won by My Students

Accenture Award.  Won by Zach DeVito, an undergraduate advisee.  Dec.  2007.

Accenture Award.  Won by Lester Mackey, an undergraduate advisee.  Dec.  2007.

CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Award. Won by Lester Mackey, an undergraduate advisee.  May 2007.

Pyne Prize.  Won by Lester Mackey, an undergraduate advisee.  May 2007.

Princeton Computer Science Department Senior Thesis Award.  Co-winner Mark Daly, an undergraduate advisee.  May 2006.

Princeton Computer Science Department Senior Thesis Award.  Co-winner Rob Simmons, an undergraduate advisee.  May 2005.