Benedict Bunting

I am currently a DPhil student in the Department of Computer Science, having completed an undergraduate masters in Computer Science at Oxford in 2022. In Michaelmas Term 2023, I joined St John's as a College Lecturer.

Teaching

I am involved with teaching undergraduate students here at St John's, particularly in giving tutorials to first- and second-year students. Small group tutorials offer an opportunity to work closely with students, observe how they tackle problems, and offer individual advice. Tutorials often allow an opportunity to go beyond the ideas on problem sheets, and I have found them a rewarding experience as both tutee and tutor.

My research interests lie in the area of programming language semantics, particularly using techniques called game semantics. Semantics involves finding a mathematical model in which programs can be interpreted, which allows for reasoning about properties of programs using mathematical tools. My work involves finding fragments of programming languages in which certain properties, like equivalences, can be proven automatically. These results are useful for proving that optimisations on programs preserve the meaning of the program.

Recent Publications

Operational Algorithmic Game Semantics. Benedict Bunting and Andrzej S Murawski. In 2023 38th Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS). https://doi.org/10.1109/LICS56636.2023.10175791

Awards and Distinctions

Computer Science Department Teaching Award (2022–23)