Dakotah Lambert

dakotahlambert@acm.org

Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Haverford College

Interests

My work lies at the intersection of theoretical computer science, abstract algebra, and linguistics. Using connections between formal logic, finite automata, and algebra, I study the structures that arise in communication between and among humans and computers, including natural languages (human–human communication), programming languages (human–computer communication), and signaling protocols (computer–computer communication). Parameterization and decomposition of these systems arise out of their structure and inform mechanisms for recognition and learning. I have also applied these techniques to pattern-learning by neural networks, which provides insight and explainability for such models.

Projects

Over the years, I have been building an interactive theorem-prover for subregular logics. The custom domain-specific language, PLEB, and its interpreter, plebby, have been instrumental to my work. Implemented in Haskell as both a library and supporting command-line tools, the Language Toolkit (LTK) allows one to build finite automata from certain kinds of quantifier-free logical expressions, to extract logical descriptions of automata, and to classify the associated language with respect to a rich subregular hierarchy. This includes classes defined by logical properties as well as those induced by user-specified pseudovarieties of semigroups or monoids. This system is also available on Hackage.

Find more on Github.

Publications

Talks