Michael Clarkson

Michael Clarkson

Steven H. Weiss Provost's Teaching Fellow and Senior Lecturer
Computer Science
Gates Hall, Room 461
607-255-0278
Associate Director
McCormick Family Teaching Excellence Institute (MTEI)
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Biography

Michael Clarkson is teaching-track faculty in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. In 2022, after a decade of teaching a total of about 6,000 students, he received the university’s highest annual teaching award for teaching-track faculty and was appointed as a Provost’s Teaching Fellow (a permanent designation). He is best known for his open-source textbook on OCaml programming, which is used at Cornell and elsewhere. His accompanying YouTube channel on functional programming has received over a half million views from around the world. He also teaches courses on object-oriented programming, formal verification, computer security, and data science.

Teaching Interests

  • Functional programming
  • Formal verification
  • Object-oriented programming
  • Computer security
  • Data science

Selected Publications

  • OCaml Programming: Correct + Efficient + Beautiful. Online, open-source textbook for Cornell's CS 3110 Data Structures and Functional Programming, and other courses at other universities. Accompanied by 200+ YouTube videos. Clarkson is the primary author.
  • Software Foundations, volumes 1 and 3. Online textbook for Cornell's CS 4160 Formal Verification, and other courses at other universities. Clarkson is a contributing author.
  • Hyperproperties. Michael R. Clarkson and Fred B. Schneider. Journal of Computer Security, 18(6):1157–1210, 2010. The conference version of this paper in CSF'08 won the Test of Time Award in 2023.
  • Civitas: Toward a Secure Voting System. Michael R. Clarkson, Stephen Chong, and Andrew C. Myers. In Proc. IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland), pp. 354–368, May 2008.

Selected Awards and Honors

  • Tau Beta Pi Professor of the Year Award (Cornell University College of Engineering) 2023
  • Steven H. Weiss Provost's Teaching Fellowship Award (Cornell University) 2022
  • Tau Beta Pi Professor of the Year Award (Cornell University College of Engineering) 2021
  • Kenneth A. Goldman '71 Excellence in Teaching Award (Cornell University College of Engineering) 2020
  • Robert '55 and Vanne '57 Cowie Excellence in Teaching Award (Cornell University College of Engineering) 2015
  • AFOSR YIP Award 2012

Education

  • BM (Music Performance (Piano)), Miami University, 1999
  • BSc (Systems Analysis), Miami University, 1999
  • MS (Computer Science), Cornell University, 2004
  • PhD (Computer Science), Cornell University, 2010

Websites