Chung-chieh Shan

I study what things mean that matter. I work to tap into and enhance the amazing human ability to create concepts, combine concepts, and share concepts, by lining up formal representations and what they represent. To this end, in the short term, I develop programming languages that divide what to do and how to do it into modules that can be built and reused separately. In particular, I develop so-called probabilistic programming languages, which divide stochastic models and inference algorithms into modules that can be built and reused separately. In the long term, I hope to supplant first-order logic by something that does not presuppose a fact of the matter what things there are, though there may be a fact of the matter what stuff there is.

Teaching

Introduction to computer science (BL CSCI C211, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023)

Monad and side effects (Invited course at the Formosan Summer School on Logic, Language, and Computation, 2022)

Delimited control and applications, with Olivier Danvy (Workshop on recent developments in type theory, Lyon, France, 2014)

Lambda: the ultimate syntax-semantics interface, with Oleg Kiselyov (North American summer school in logic, language, and information, 2010, 2012; IFIP working conference on domain-specific languages, 2011; Cornell University, 2011; European summer school in logic, language and information, 2013)

Continuations: natural language meaning as computation, with Chris Barker (European summer school in logic, language and information, 2004)

Programming languages (undergraduate and graduate), artificial intelligence (graduate), computational modeling (graduate), natural-language semantics (graduate)

Education

Apparently noncompositional phenomena in natural languages can be analyzed like computational side effects in programming languages: anaphora can be analyzed like state, intensionality can be analyzed like environment, quantification can be analyzed like delimited control, and so on. We thus term apparently noncompositional phenomena in natural languages linguistic side effects. We put this new, general analogy to work in linguistics as well as programming-language theory.

BA in mathematics 1999, cum laude in general studies, Harvard University
Phi Beta Kappa; Harvard College and John Harvard Scholarships

Awards

Best paper (with Oleg Kiselyov) 2009, working conference on domain-specific languages

Beth dissertation award 2006, Association for Logic, Language and Information [Slides for talk]

Best paper (with Balder D. ten Cate) 2002, ESSLLI student session

First place (with Dylan P. Thurston) 2001, ACM ICFP programming contest

Books

Continuations and natural language: Chris Barker and Chung-chieh Shan. Oxford University Press, 2014.
The Microsoft conspiracy: Chung-chieh Shan and Kaihsu Tai. Taipei: Informationist, 1995.

Book chapters

Continuation hierarchy and quantifier scope: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. In Formal approaches to semantics and pragmatics, ed. E. McCready, Katsuhiko Yabushita, and Kei Yoshimoto, 105–134. Springer, 2014.
Fun with type functions: Oleg Kiselyov, Simon Peyton Jones, and Chung-chieh Shan. In Reflections on the work of C. A. R. Hoare. ed. A. W. Roscoe, Cliff B. Jones, and Kenneth R. Wood, 301–331. Springer, 2010.
Axiomatizing Groenendijk’s logic of interrogation: Balder D. ten Cate and Chung-chieh Shan. In Questions in dynamic semantics, ed. Maria Aloni, Alastair Butler, and Paul Dekker, 63–82. Elsevier, 2007.
Linguistic side effects: In Direct compositionality, ed. Chris Barker and Pauline Jacobson, 132–163. Oxford University Press, 2007. Presented since 2002 at the Universities of AZ, BC, CA San Diego, IL Urbana-Champaign, PA, Rochester, UT, VT, and WA; Boston, Brown, Cornell, Harvard, Indiana, Rutgers, and Stanford Universities; City College of New York; DIMACS; MIT; logic and computational linguistics workshop; New England programming languages and systems symposium; Oregon Graduate Institute; direct compositionality workshop.

Refereed journal articles

Exact recursive probabilistic programming: David Chiang, Colin McDonald, and Chung-chieh Shan. Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages 7(OOPSLA1):98:1–98:31, 2023. [Video]
Sham: a DSL for fast DSLs: Rajan Walia, Chung-chieh Shan, and Sam Tobin-Hochstadt. The Art, Science, and Engineering of Programming 6(1):4:1–4:31, 2021.
Symbolic disintegration with a variety of base measures: Praveen Narayanan and Chung-chieh Shan. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems 42(2):9:1–9:60, 2020. Presented at the international conference on probabilistic programming. [Video]
From high-level inference algorithms to efficient code: Rajan Walia, Praveen Narayanan, Jacques Carette, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt, and Chung-chieh Shan. Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages 3(ICFP):98:1–98:30, 2019. [Penultimate version]
Symbolic conditioning of arrays in probabilistic programs: Praveen Narayanan and Chung-chieh Shan. Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages 1(ICFP):11:1–11:25, 2017. [Video]
Combinators for impure yet hygienic code generation: Yukiyoshi Kameyama, Oleg Kiselyov, and Chung-chieh Shan. Science of Computer Programming 112(2):120–144, 2015.
Functional un|unparsing: Kenichi Asai, Oleg Kiselyov, and Chung-chieh Shan. Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation 24(4):311–340, 2012. Presented at the symposium in honor of Mitchell Wand, 2009. [Slides for talk]
Purely functional lazy nondeterministic programming: Sebastian Fischer, Oleg Kiselyov, and Chung-chieh Shan. Journal of Functional Programming 21(4–5):413–465, 2011.
Shifting the stage: staging with delimited control: Yukiyoshi Kameyama, Oleg Kiselyov, and Chung-chieh Shan. Journal of Functional Programming 21(6):617–662, 2011.
The character of quotation: Linguistics and Philosophy 33(5):417–443, 2010. Presented at the Yale syntax colloquium, 2010.
Finally tagless, partially evaluated: tagless staged interpreters for simpler typed languages: Jacques Carette, Oleg Kiselyov, and Chung-chieh Shan. Journal of Functional Programming 19(5):509–543, 2009. Presented since 2008 at the New Jersey programming languages and systems seminar, the University of Waterloo, and Cornell University.
Donkey anaphora is in-scope binding: Chris Barker and Chung-chieh Shan. Semantics and Pragmatics 1(1):1–46, 2008.
A static simulation of dynamic delimited control: Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation 20(4):371–401, 2007.
Explaining crossover and superiority as left-to-right evaluation: Chung-chieh Shan and Chris Barker. Linguistics and Philosophy 29(1):91–134, 2006. Presented at the ESSLLI 2004 workshops on syntax, semantics and pragmatics of questions and on semantic approaches to binding theory. Also poster at North East Linguistic Society, 2002.
A modal interpretation of the logic of interrogation: Rani Nelken and Chung-chieh Shan. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 15(3):251–271, 2006.
On the static and dynamic extents of delimited continuations: Dariusz Biernacki, Olivier Danvy, and Chung-chieh Shan. Science of Computer Programming 60(3):274–297, 2006.
Types as graphs: continuations in Type Logical Grammar: Chris Barker and Chung-chieh Shan. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 15(4):331–370, 2006. Presented at the New Jersey programming languages and systems seminar, 2004. [Slides for talk]
On the dynamic extent of delimited continuations: Dariusz Biernacki, Olivier Danvy, and Chung-chieh Shan. Report RS-05-13, BRICS. Abbreviated version in Information Processing Letters 96(1):7–17, 2005.
Temporal versus non-temporal “when”: Snippets 6:14–15, 2002.

Refereed conference and workshop papers

Translating recursive probabilistic programs to factor graph grammars: David Chiang and Chung-chieh Shan, 2020. Presented at the international conference on probabilistic programming.
Applications of a disintegration transformation: Praveen Narayanan and Chung-chieh Shan. Workshop on program transformations for machine learning, 2019.
Verified equational reasoning on a little language of measures: Matthew Heimerdinger and Chung-chieh Shan. Workshop on languages for inference, 2019.
More support for symbolic disintegration: Praveen Narayanan and Chung-chieh Shan. Workshop on probabilistic programming semantics, 2018.
Composing inference algorithms as program transformations: Robert Zinkov and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the 33rd conference on uncertainty in artificial intelligence, ed. Gal Elidan, Kristian Kersting, and Alexander T. Ihler, 2017.
Exact Bayesian inference by symbolic disintegration: Chung-chieh Shan and Norman Ramsey. In Proceedings of the symposium on principles of programming languages, ed. Giuseppe Castagna and Andrew D. Gordon, 130–144, 2017. [Video] [Slides for talk]
Deriving a probability density calculator (functional pearl): Wazim Mohammed Ismail and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the international conference on functional programming, ed. Jacques Garrigue, Gabriele Keller, and Eijiro Sumii, 47–59, 2016. [Video]
Probabilistic inference by program transformation in Hakaru (system description): Praveen Narayanan, Jacques Carette, Wren Romano, Chung-chieh Shan, and Robert Zinkov. In Proceedings of the 13th international symposium on functional and logic programming, ed. Oleg Kiselyov and Andy King, 62–79. Lecture notes in computer science 9613, Springer, 2016.
Simplifying probabilistic programs using computer algebra: Jacques Carette and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the 18th international symposium on practical aspects of declarative languages, ed. Marco Gavanelli and John H. Reppy, 135–152. Lecture notes in computer science 9585, Springer, 2016.
Splitting hairs: In Proceedings of the 20th Amsterdam colloquium, ed. Thomas Brochhagen, Floris Roelofsen, and Nadine Theiler, 363–367. Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam, 2015. [Abstract] [Slides for talk] Invited talk at WoLLIC (workshop on logic, language and information) 2015.
Combinators for impure yet hygienic code generation: Yukiyoshi Kameyama, Oleg Kiselyov, and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the workshop on partial evaluation and program manipulation, ed. Wei-Ngan Chin and Jurriaan Hage, 3–14, 2014.
Shonan Challenge for generative programming (short position paper): Baris Aktemur, Yukiyoshi Kameyama, Oleg Kiselyov, and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the workshop on partial evaluation and program manipulation, ed. Elvira Albert and Shin-Cheng Mu, 147–154, 2013.
An analysis of the Mozilla Jetpack extension framework: Rezwana Karim, Mohan Dhawan, Vinod Ganapathy, and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the 26th European conference on object-oriented programming, ed. James Noble, 333–355. Lecture notes in computer science 7313, Springer, 2012.
Enhancing JavaScript with transactions: Mohan Dhawan, Chung-chieh Shan, and Vinod Ganapathy. In Proceedings of the 26th European conference on object-oriented programming, 2012.
Entailment above the word level in distributional semantics: Marco Baroni, Raffaella Bernardi, Ngoc-Quynh Do, and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the 13th conference of the European chapter of the ACL, ed. Walter Daelemans, 23–32, 2012. Presented at the University of Tsukuba. [Slides for talk] [Data]
Generating quantifiers and negation to explain homework testing: Jason Perry and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the 5th workshop on innovative use of NLP for building educational applications, ed. Joel Tetreault, Jill Burstein, and Claudia Leacock, 57–65, 2010. Presented at the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano, 2011.
Position paper: the case for JavaScript transactions: Mohan Dhawan, Chung-chieh Shan, and Vinod Ganapathy. In Proceedings of the 5th workshop on programming languages and analysis for security, ed. Anindya Banerjee and Deepak Garg, 2010.
Principles of interdimensional meaning interaction: Chris Barker, Raffaella Bernardi, and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory XX, ed. Nan Li and David Lutz, 109–127. Cornell University Press, 2010.
Characterizing quotation: In Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory XIX, ed. Satoshi Ito, Ed Cormany, and David Lutz, 413–426. Cornell University Press, 2009. (Invited.) [Slides for talk] [Handout] Presented at Radboud University Nijmegen, 2008.
Embedded probabilistic programming: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the working conference on domain-specific languages, ed. Walid Taha, 360–384. Lecture notes in computer science 5658, Springer, 2009. (Best paper award.) [Slides for talk] Presented since 2010 at Indiana, Ochanomizu, and Rutgers Universities and the University of Tsukuba. Posters at the NIPS 2008 workshop on probabilistic programming and at IBM PL Day in Hawthorne.
J is for JavaScript: a direct-style correspondence between Algol-like languages and JavaScript using first-class continuations: Olivier Danvy, Chung-chieh Shan, and Ian Zerny. In Proceedings of the working conference on domain-specific languages, ed. Walid Taha, 1–19. Lecture notes in computer science 5658, Springer, 2009.
Lifted inference: normalizing loops by evaluation: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the workshop on normalization by evaluation, 2009. Presented since 2009 at the New Jersey programming languages and systems seminar, the probabilistic programming workshop, Northeastern University, and Japan’s National Institute of Informatics. [Slides for talk]
Monolingual probabilistic programming using generalized coroutines: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the 25th conference on uncertainty in artificial intelligence, ed. Jeff A. Bilmes and Andrew Y. Ng, 285–292, 2009. Presented at the probabilistic programming workshop, 2010. [Slides for talk]
Purely functional lazy non-deterministic programming: Sebastian Fischer, Oleg Kiselyov, and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the international conference on functional programming, 11–22, 2009. [Video]
Shifting the stage: staging with delimited control: Yukiyoshi Kameyama, Oleg Kiselyov, and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the symposium on partial evaluation and semantics-based program manipulation, 111–120, 2009. Presented since 2008 at the Universities of Århus and Copenhagen, McGill and Utrecht Universities, IBM PL Day in Hawthorne, and Microsoft Research Cambridge. [Slides for talk]
Closing the stage: from staged code to typed closures: Yukiyoshi Kameyama, Oleg Kiselyov, and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the symposium on partial evaluation and semantics-based program manipulation, 147–157, 2008. [Slides for talk]
Inverse scope as metalinguistic quotation in operational semantics: In Proceedings of the 4th international workshop on logic and engineering of natural language semantics, ed. Kei Yoshimoto, 167–178, 2007. Revised version in New frontiers in artificial intelligence: JSAI 2007 conference and workshops, revised selected papers, ed. Ken Satoh, Akihiro Inokuchi, Katashi Nagao, and Takahiro Kawamura, 123–134. Lecture notes in computer science 4914, Springer, 2008.
Lightweight monadic regions: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the Haskell symposium, 1–12, 2008. [Slides for talk] [Video]
Pure, declarative, and constructive arithmetic relations (declarative pearl): Oleg Kiselyov, William E. Byrd, Daniel P. Friedman, and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the 9th international symposium on functional and logic programming, ed. Jacques Garrigue and Manuel Hermenegildo, 64–80. Lecture notes in computer science 4989, Springer, 2008. [Slides for talk]
Boosting optimal logical patterns using noisy data: Noam Goldberg and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the SIAM international conference on data mining, 228–236, 2007.
Causal reference and inverse scope as mixed quotation: In Proceedings of the 16th Amsterdam colloquium, ed. Maria Aloni, Paul Dekker, and Floris Roelofsen, 199–204. Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam, 2007. [Slides for talk]
Delimited continuations in operating systems: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the conference on modeling and using context, ed. Boicho Kokinov, Daniel C. Richardson, Thomas R. Roth-Berghofer, and Laure Vieu, 291–302. Lecture notes in computer science 4635, Springer, 2007. Posters at USENIX technical conference and at CONTEXT.
Finally tagless, partially evaluated: tagless staged interpreters for simpler typed languages: Jacques Carette, Oleg Kiselyov, and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the 5th Asian symposium on programming languages and systems, ed. Zhong Shao, 222–238. Lecture notes in computer science 4807, Springer, 2007. [Slides for talk]
Lightweight static resources: sexy types for embedded and systems programming: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. In Draft proceedings of the 8th symposium on trends in functional programming, ed. Marco T. Morazán and Henrik Nilsson. Technical report TR-SHU-CS-2007-04-1, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Seton Hall University, 2007. [Slides for talk]
A substructural type system for delimited continuations: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the international conference on typed lambda calculi and applications, ed. Simona Ronchi Della Rocca, 223–239. Lecture notes in computer science 4583, Springer, 2007. Presented at the New Jersey programming languages and systems seminar. [Slides for talk]
Delimited dynamic binding: Oleg Kiselyov, Chung-chieh Shan, and Amr Sabry. In Proceedings of the international conference on functional programming, 26–37, 2006. [Slides for talk]
Lightweight static capabilities: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of the programming languages meets program verification workshop, ed. Aaron Stump and Hongwei Xi, 79–104. Electronic notes in theoretical computer science 174(7), Elsevier, 2006. [Slides for talk]
Functional pearl: backtracking, interleaving, and terminating monad transformers: Oleg Kiselyov, Chung-chieh Shan, Daniel P. Friedman, and Amr Sabry. In Proceedings of the international conference on functional programming, 192–203, 2005. [Code]
Binding alongside Hamblin alternatives calls for variable-free semantics: In Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory XIV, ed. Kazuha Watanabe and Robert B. Young, 289–304. Cornell University Press, 2004.
Delimited continuations in natural language: quantification and polarity sensitivity: In Proceedings of the 4th continuations workshop, ed. Hayo Thielecke, 55–64. Technical report CSR-04-1, School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, 2004. [Slides for talk]
Functional pearl: implicit configurations—or, type classes reflect the values of types: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. Technical report TR-15-04, Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University. Abbreviated version in Proceedings of the 2004 Haskell workshop, 33–44. Association for Computing Machinery, 2004. [Slides for talk] [Literate Haskell source code]
A logic of interrogation should be internalized in a modal logic for knowledge: Rani Nelken and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory XIV, ed. Kazuha Watanabe and Robert B. Young, 197–211. Cornell University Press, 2004.
Polarity sensitivity and evaluation order in type-logical grammar: In Proceedings of the 2004 human language technology conference of the North American chapter of the ACL, ed. Susan Dumais, Daniel Marcu, and Salim Roukos, 2:129–132. Association for Computational Linguistics, 2004.
Shift to control: In Proceedings of the 5th workshop on Scheme and functional programming, ed. Olin Shivers and Oscar Waddell, 99–107. Technical report 600, Computer Science Department, Indiana University, 2004. [Slides for talk]
A continuation semantics of interrogatives that accounts for Baker’s ambiguity: In Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory XII, ed. Brendan Jackson, 246–265. Cornell University Press, 2002.
The partition semantics of questions, syntactically: Chung-chieh Shan and Balder D. ten Cate. In Proceedings of the ESSLLI-2002 student session, ed. Malvina Nissim, 255–269. 14th European summer school in logic, language and information, 2002. (Best paper award.)
Question answering: from partitions to Prolog: Balder D. ten Cate and Chung-chieh Shan. In Proceedings of TABLEAUX 2002: automated reasoning with analytic tableaux and related methods, ed. Uwe Egly and Christian G. Fermüller, 251–265. Lecture notes in computer science 2381, Springer, 2002. Also in Proceedings of NLULP-02: the 7th international workshop on natural language understanding and logic programming, ed. Shuly Wintner. Datalogiske skrifter 92, Department of Computer Science, Roskilde University, 2002.
Monads for natural language semantics: In Proceedings of the ESSLLI-2001 student session, ed. Kristina Striegnitz, 285–298. 13th European summer school in logic, language and information, 2001.
A variable-free dynamic semantics: In Proceedings of the 13th Amsterdam colloquium, ed. Robert van Rooy and Martin Stokhof, 204–209. Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam, 2001.
Fred: artificial neural networks evolving in virtual worlds: In Proceedings of the international symposium on artificial neural networks, 343–348. National Cheng-Kung University, Taiwan, 1994.

Other papers

Diverse philosophies: (What) are they? (What) do we want them to be?: Chung-chieh Shan, Shen-yi Liao, and Wu Wanwei. Translation of Liao’s essay from English to traditional Chinese, 2021.
Translators’ notes: Letters for Black Lives: Asian American Writers’ Workshop, 2020.
ICFP 2008 poster session: Benjamin Pierce, Colin Runciman, and Chung-chieh Shan. Technical report 640, Department of Computer Science, Rutgers University, 2008.
Interpreting quotations: Presented at the Rutgers linguistics colloquium, 2007, and at the Semantics Research Group, 2008.
Interpreting types as abstract values: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. Lecture notes for the Formosan Summer School on Logic, Language, and Computation, 2008.
Higher-order modules in System F_ω and Haskell: May 15, 2006.
A computational interpretation of classical S4 modal logic: Presented at the New England programming languages and systems symposium, 2003, and at the 3rd intuitionistic modal logics and applications workshop, 2005.
Sexy types in action: ACM SIGPLAN Notices 39(5):15–22, 2004.
From shift and reset to polarized linear logic: 2003.
Quantifier strengths predict scopal possibilities of Mandarin Chinese wh-indefinites: Presented at Harvard University linguistics, 2003.
Markup optimisation by probabilistic parsing: Chung-chieh Shan and Dylan P. Thurston, 2001. First-place winner in the ACM International Conference on Functional Programming programming contest.
Meanings of multiple-wh questions: Paper for Harvard Linguistics 118 (Susumu Kuno, Introduction to discourse analysis) and 205 (Jonathan Nissenbaum, Topics at the syntax-semantics interface), Fall 2000.
Model selection for belief networks when learning with incomplete data: Paper for Harvard Computer Science 282 (Avi Pfeffer, Probabilistic reasoning), Fall 2000.
Random-self-reducibility in the polynomial hierarchy: Paper for Harvard Mathematics Tutorial (Henry Cohn, Probabilistic proof systems), Fall 1997.
Hierarchical distributed election protocols: Steve Chien and Chung-chieh Shan. Paper for Harvard Computer Science 262 (Jim Waldo, Introduction to distributed computing) with several bugs fixed, Spring 1997.

Other talks

Probabilistic programming: Programming languages and formal methods laboratory, Academia Sinica, 2021.
Story circles: Programming languages and formal methods laboratory, Academia Sinica, 2021.
Beginning Student Tables: Samuel Maginot, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt, and Chung-chieh Shan. A tool to help students design functions by example, 2019. [Demo]
How to give a talk: PLMW (programming languages mentoring workshop) at POPL, 2019. (Invited.)
Calculating distributions: Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming, 2018. (Invited.) [Slides for talk]
Equational reasoning for probabilistic programming: POPL TutorialFest, 2018.
Modular probabilistic inference by program transformations: Quantitative Aspects of Programming Languages and Systems, 2016. (Invited.) Also at Indiana University.
Operational semantics for disintegration: Mathematical Foundations of Programming Semantics, 2016. (Special session on probabilistic programming.)
Building blocks for exact and approximate inference: Jacques Carette, Praveen Narayanan, Wren Romano, Chung-chieh Shan, and Robert Zinkov. Poster at the NIPS workshop on black box learning and inference, 2015.
Conditioning by lazy partial evaluation: Dagstuhl seminar on challenges and trends in probabilistic programming, 2015.
A core calculus for distributions: DARPA PPAML PI meeting, 2015.
A combinator library for MCMC sampling: Praveen Narayanan and Chung-chieh Shan. Poster at the NIPS workshop on probabilistic programming, 2014.
Conditioning and density, mathematically and computationally: Mathematical Foundations of Programming Semantics, 2014. (Invited.) Also at DARPA PPAML PI meeting.
From lazy evaluation to Gibbs sampling: IFIP Working Group 2.11 (program generation), 2014.
Braiding in circles: Chung-chieh Shan and Dylan P. Thurston. Demo at the workshop on functional art, music, modeling and design, 2013. [Video] [Code]
From distributional semantics to formal grammar and back: Conference on Formal Grammar, 2013. (Invited.)
Integrating language with other methods and modules of meaning: Panelist at the AAAI fall symposium on integrated cognition, 2013.
Intermediate representations for conditioning and loops: DARPA PPAML kick-off meeting, 2013.
Lambda: the ultimate syntax-semantics interface: University of Århus, 2013.
From language models to distributional semantics: Presented at the Semantics Research Group, 2012, and at the symposium on compositional vector space semantics at Stanford University, 2013.
Equational reasoning for conditioning as disintegration: Chung-chieh Shan and Dylan P. Thurston. Poster at the NIPS workshop on probabilistic programming, 2012.
Functional modularity in the lambda calculus: Association for Symbolic Logic winter meeting (with the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division annual meeting) session on lambda calculi, type systems, and applications to natural language, 2011, and Kyoto University, 2012. [Abstract] (Invited.)
Linguistic modularity and side effects: University of Iowa, 2012.
Metadiscourse as unquotation: Workshop on quotation: perspectives from philosophy and linguistics, 2012.
Programming as collaborative reference: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. Off the beaten track workshop, 2012. [Slides for talk] [Handout]
Back to the model: Jason Perry and Chung-chieh Shan. LSA workshop on semantics for textual inference, 2011.
Computational effects across generated binders. Part 1: problems and solutions. Part 2: enforcing lexical scope: Yukiyoshi Kameyama, Oleg Kiselyov, and Chung-chieh Shan. IFIP Working Group 2.11 (program generation), INRIA Paris, and Cornell University, 2011.
How to reify fresh type variables?: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. Shonan meeting on dependently typed programming, 2011.
Shadows of meaning: Amsterdam Colloquium, 2011. (Invited.)
What are these control hierarchies?: Theory and practice of delimited continuations workshop (Novi Sad), 2011. (Invited.)
Bounded-rational theory of mind for conversational implicature: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. Texas Linguistics Society (UT Austin) and Logical Methods for Discourse (LORIA), 2009, and Semantics Research Group and NYU Linguistics semantics group, 2010.
Innate concepts as specialized programs? On Noah Goodman’s talk “Concept learning as probabilistic program induction”: Cornell workshop on grammar induction, 2010.
Lightweight static capabilities: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. Utrecht University computer science, 2009, and Stanford University computer science, 2010.
Mandarin Chinese wh-indefinite scope by mixed quotation: Cornell linguistics, 2010.
Mechanizing multilevel metatheory with control effects: Yukiyoshi Kameyama, Oleg Kiselyov, and Chung-chieh Shan. Workshop on mechanizing metatheory, 2010.
The MetaOCaml files: status report and research proposal: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. ML workshop and IFIP Working Group 2.11 (program generation), 2010. [Slides for talk]
Probabilistic programming using first-class stores and first-class continuations: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. ML workshop, 2010. [Slides for talk]
Self-applicable probabilistic inference without interpretive overhead for bounded-rational theory of mind: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. UC Berkeley, IFIP Working Group 2.11 (program generation), University of Rochester, MIT, 2009, Stanford University linguistics, Microsoft Research New England, Tufts University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and New England programming languages and systems symposium, 2010.
Typed metaprogramming with effects: 5th international workshop on logical frameworks and meta-languages: theory and practice, 2010. (Invited.)
Donkey sentences as program generators: University of Århus, 2008.
Functional un-unparsing: University of Århus, 2008.
Theory of mind and bounded rationality without interpretive overhead: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. University of Amsterdam and University of Århus, 2008.
Reasoning about contexts in Henkin models: Chris Barker and Chung-chieh Shan. Workshop on lambda calculus and formal grammar, 2008.
Embedding languages: Rutgers computer science, 2007.
Lightweight static guarantees: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. Poster presented at USENIX technical conference, 2007.
Non-adjacent probabilities: must they inform word learning?: Dana L. Chesney and Chung-chieh Shan. Poster presented at Association for Psychological Science convention, 2007.
Quotation and effects in natural language: three applications: Oleg Kiselyov and Chung-chieh Shan. IFIP Working Group 2.11 (program generation), 2007.
Quoting side effects: 13th annual Reflections | Projections computing conference, ACM UIUC, 2007.
Language machines: DIMACS Research Experience for Undergraduates seminar, 2006.
Mutable bindings in evaluation contexts: Lightning talk, Workshop on mechanizing metatheory, 2006.
Against the division of labor in scope and binding: Linguistic Society of America 79th annual meeting, 2005. [Short abstract] [Abstract] [Handout]
On Anna Szabolcsi’s paper “Proof-theoretic semantics”: Rutgers semantics workshop, 2005.
Interaction meanings and intermeaning actions: Rutgers semantics reading group, 2005.

Other projects

Seesaw: Woodwork, video, interactive installation. Group exhibition “creN/Ature” curated by Wu Muching and presented by TKG⁺ Projects. 2021.
McBride: A BibTeX bibliography style that follows the “Documentation Two” specifications in the Chicago Manual of Style. 2002–2004.
longtable: A modified version of LaTeX’s longtable package that fixes many bugs. 2003.
psbind: A program that trims and reassembles pages in a PostScript document for n-up printing. If you dislike how psnup leaves too much white space in its output, this program is for you. 2001–2003.
Miss Protocol: An advice column on computer technology. 2000–2003.
split-linguist: A filter to split up digest messages from the LINGUIST mailing list. 2001–2002.
A Haskell 98 implementation of: Guy L. Steele, Jr., Building interpreters by composing monads, in POPL ’94: conference record of the annual ACM symposium on principles of programming languages. 2001.
bif2bnt: A Web service to convert Bayes nets from BIF format to BNT format. 2000.
fmt2: A program that reformats Chinese text in Big-5 encoding. It breaks lines intelligently using an algorithm similar to that of TeX. 1998–2000.
The first movement of a sonatina in C major: 1999.
Course Decision Assistant: Geoffrey Mainland, Chung-chieh Shan, and Alex Wong. An online searchable course catalog for Harvard University. 1996–1999.
Change my signature: A Web service that lets anyone change the signature file I use in my personal email messages and Usenet postings. 1997.
huhebi: the self-organizing narrative: An early experiment in hypertext collaboration. 1995.
Miscellany: Academic: academia advice, computational linguistics, computer science, research ideas, terminology lookup, typesetting. Other: bicycle, comics recommendations, deaf people, digital piano selection advice, midnight ambiance, sexual orientation, silicon wall clock, string collection, twelve days of the invasion.

Chung-chieh Shan 單(シャン)中(ジョン)杰(ジエ)

Research