Professor Emeritus

After retiring last July, the University Senate have approved my emeritus status. I'm grateful to Julian Bradfield for his work drafting the generous minute that accompanied the approval.

Special Minute

Professor Philip Wadler BSc, MSc, PhD, FRSE, FACM, FRS

Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Computer Science

We are pleased to nominate Professor Philip Wadler for the title of Emeritus Professor at the University of Edinburgh. Professor Wadler is a popular educator and has had an extensive career in both academia and industry, with seminal contributions to the field of computer science, particularly in the theory and practice of programming languages. Philip Wadler obtained a BSc with honours in mathematics from Stanford University in 1977, followed by a MSc and PhD in computer science in 1979 and 1984 from Carnegie-Mellon University. He took up a postdoc at Oxford University, and in 1987 he was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Glasgow. In 1996, Phil switched to industry, working at Bell Labs and Avaya Labs. He returned to academia in 2003, taking up the Chair of Theoretical Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh.

Professor Wadler’s research centres on the theory and practice of programming languages. He served as first editor of the Haskell report, and introduced what are arguably its two main innovations, type classes and monads. Haskell saw widespread use, and type classes and monads were adopted by a wide variety of other programming languages and proof assistants. He contributed to the design of the programming language Java, and introduced a model of it widely used by researchers. By influencing the design of popular programming languages, Phil has had a profound impact not only on programmers, but also on the users of the systems those programmers build. If you’ve used Facebook or X, Android or iPhone, you’ve run code that exploits concepts Phil pioneered.

Professor Wadler has published many seminal monographs and textbooks throughout his illustrious career. His contribution has been honoured in many ways. He served as chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Programming Languages (SIGPLAN) from 2009–2012 and received its Distinguished Service Award in 2016. He was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2005, a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 2007, and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2022. He regularly delivers keynotes at both academic and developer conferences. In 2016, his sixtieth birthday was marked by a two-day Wadlerfest, and an accompanying festschrift published by Springer.

Phil is a passionate and popular teacher. On moving to Edinburgh in 2003, he introduced a first-year programming languages course based on Haskell and was shortlisted for the EUSA Teaching Award (Overall Best Performer) in 2009. His Honours courses on programming language theory have been among the most popular theoretical courses. Phil is widely known for theatrical performance and applies this talent outside academia, often performing stand- up comedy via Bright Club, and appeared in the Fringe via the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas in 2024.

Since 2017, Phil has worked closely with industry, including consulting for IOG where he helped to design the smart contract system for its Cardano blockchain and applied formal methods to ensure its reliability. After retirement from Edinburgh, he plans to write a version of his online text for the proof assistant Agda updated to the proof assistant Lean. He will appear again this summer at the Fringe.

To conclude, Professor Philip Wadler's career is characterised by groundbreaking research, impactful teaching, and significant professional service. His work has shaped the landscape of programming languages and computer science education. Conferring the title of Emeritus Professor on Professor Wadler would honour his substantial contributions to the University of Edinburgh and the broader scientific community.