Richard Ford
President at Applied Formal Methods
Greater Chattanooga United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolRichard Ford is a veteran software engineer and founder with over 11 years of listed experience and a multi-decade career designing compilers, optimizers, and toolchains for firms from Intel and AMD to Microsoft. As President of Applied Formal Methods he applies Coq, Dafny, VST and concurrent separation logic to move verified software into production, blending deep formal-methods research with pragmatic engineering. He has led compiler efforts (LLILC, Bartok) that achieved substantial code-size reductions via generic sharing and more recently spearheaded prototype PyTorch-to-C++ compiler and number-system work for AI. An active backend contributor to notable static-analysis projects like SVF and NASA’s ikos, he has improved visualization, memory-domain representations, and uninitialized-variable detection to make analysis results more actionable. Trained as a physicist (MS/PhD Stanford), he combines rigorous formal reasoning with decades of low-level systems practice and a knack for translating proofs into practical tooling. Less obvious: his career threads show a persistent focus on bridging software and hardware verification, from VLIW toolchains to modern verified compilers.
11 years of coding experience
41 years of employment as a software developer
B.S., Physics, B.S., Physics at Walla Walla UniversityM.S., Ph.D., Physics, M.S., Ph.D., Physics at Stanford University
Stackoverflow
1reputation
0reached
0answers
0questions
Github Skills (20)
debugging10
debug10
c-language10
static-analysis10
llvm10
abstract-interpretation10
verification10
verify10
code-analysis10
cprogramming-language10
program-analysis10
graph-visualization9
pointer9
architectures8
unit-testing8
Programming languages (9)
Github contributions (5)
NASA-SW-VnV/ikos
Apr 2022 - Jun 2022
Static analyzer for C/C++ based on the theory of Abstract Interpretation.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:24 reviews, 9 commits, 2 PRs in 2 months
Contributions summary:Richard focused on enhancing the static analyzer for C/C++ code. Their work involved modifying the detection of uninitialized variables and implementing corresponding code changes. They also contributed to the core domain by refactoring and optimizing the memory value representation, specifically dealing with bitmask operations and cell management. Further, they introduced features for programs lacking debug information and added unit tests for the core functions.
static-analyzeranalysisinterpretationtheoryabstract-interpretation
SVF-tools/SVF
Mar 2021 - Apr 2021
Static Value-Flow Analysis Framework for Source Code
Role in this project:Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:12 reviews, 18 commits, 23 PRs in 1 month
Contributions summary:Richard primarily contributed to the debugging and enhancement of the SVF (Static Value-Flow Analysis Framework) project. Their work focused on improving the debugging experience by adding and refining methods for visualizing and inspecting program analysis results, particularly related to the control flow and value flow graphs. They added options to control the level of detail in these visualizations, and made various changes to node shapes and formatting to improve readability. The user also modified the MSSA (Memory SSA) dump method and added functionality for the symbol table and ICFG (Interprocedural Control-Flow Graph).
static-analyzerstatic-value-flowpointer-analysisanalysis-frameworkabstract-interpretation
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