In his lecture titled, On the Naturalness of Software, Dr. Prem Devanbu will discuss how programming languages can be similar to spoken languages in manners of predictability and repetitiveness. His research explores how methods of "natural language processing" can be used for programming. According to his abstract, Dr. Devanbu will "present some practical applications of this rather unexpected finding, and present a research vision arguing that this same phenomenon is potentially rich in both scientific questions, and engineering promise."
The National Science Foundation as well as the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in the UK fund Dr. Devanbu's research. The findings are a result of the collaboration of many universities on an international level.
Dr. Devanbu received his B.Tech from ITT Madras in Chennai, India, and his PhD from Rutgers University. After spending nearly 20 years as both a developer and a researcher at Bell Labs and its various offshoots, he left industry to join the CS faculty at UC Davis in 1997 where he is now a professor of computer science.
The CSE Colloquium Series is funded in part by donations from the Union Pacific Company.