James Chapman
Head Of Formal Methods at Input Output (IOHK)
Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolJames Chapman is Head of Formal Methods at Input Output (IOHK) with 16 years of experience blending academic rigour and production software engineering. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Nottingham and has built a career straddling research posts and industry roles focused on formal verification, language design, and dependable systems. At IOHK he leads formal methods efforts that underpin blockchain language tooling, and his open-source contributions include substantive refactors and type-checking improvements to the Plutus language implementation. Known for translating deep theoretical ideas—renaming, substitution, reduction strategies—into practical, maintainable code, he brings both leadership and hands-on backend craftsmanship. Based in Glasgow, he combines a researcher’s precision with a developer’s pragmatism to make complex systems auditable and robust.
16 years of coding experience
14 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Computer Science, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Computer Science at University of Nottingham
Github Skills (7)
type-system10
functional-programming10
plutus10
haskell10
refactor9
compiler-design9
refactoring9
Programming languages (12)
Github contributions (5)
IntersectMBO/plutus
Sep 2018 - Mar 2022
The Plutus language implementation and tools
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:106 reviews, 1095 commits, 184 PRs in 3 years 6 months
Contributions summary:James's commits focused on refactoring and extending the Plutus language implementation and its associated tools. Their work included improvements to the handling of bytestrings, optimizations in code reduction strategies, and enhancements to type checking within the system. Additionally, they contributed to the underlying mechanisms of the system, such as renaming and substitution to support complex computations.
programming-languageblockchainsmart-contractsplutus
jmchapman/Big-step-Normalisation
Sep 2011 - May 2016
Contributions:19 commits, 1 PR, 1 push in 4 years 8 months
agdanormalizationproofs
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