Frank Pfenning
Short Biography

Frank Pfenning studied Mathematics and Computer Science at the Technical University Darmstadt and then left for Carnegie Mellon University on a Fulbright scholarship where he obtained his Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1987 under the supervision of Professor Peter Andrews.

He subsequently joined the Department of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University as research faculty where he became Professor in 2002 and served as Director of Graduate Programs from 2004 to 2008. Since January 2009 he has been serving as Associate Dean for Graduate Education in the School of Computer Science. He has spent time as visiting scientist at the Max-Planck-Institute for Computer Science in Saarbrücken, as Alexander-von-Humboldt fellow at the Technical University Darmstadt, and as visiting professor at École Polytechnique and INRIA-Futurs. He has advised 19 completed Ph.D. theses and won the Herbert A. Simon Award for Teaching Excellence in the School of Computer Science in 2002.

He served as trustee, vice president, and president of CADE, Inc., the governing body of the International Conference on Automated Deduction, and on advisory boards for INRIA, the Max-Planck-Institute for Computer Science, and Seoul National University. He has chaired several conferences and program committees, including CADE and LICS, and is a member of the editorial boards for Theoretical Computer Science, Journal of Automated Reasoning, and the Journal of Symbolic Computation.

His research interests include programming languages, logic and type theory, logical frameworks, automated deduction, and computer security. In his spare time he enjoys playing squash, running, and hiking.