Welcome to the Heather Cafe

✻ Welcome to the Heather Cafe

Chris Jefferson

I'm a professor of computer science thinking about groups, constraints and puzzles. I spend lots of time writing programs for all these things, and I'm trying to get better at writing about them.

St Andrews  ·  Dundee Currently in Changsha, China

What I work on

My work spans three areas that keep eavesdropping on each other. See the full publications list for the details.

Computational group theory

Algorithms for permutation groups — graph backtracking, canonical images, refiners. I develop the Vole and GraphBacktracking packages for GAP.

Constraint programming

Solver design, propagation, automated modelling. Co-author of the Minion solver and the Essence specification language.

Puzzles & games

Puzzle generation, difficulty measurement, understanding how humans solve. Demystify explains puzzle solutions step by step.

Prospective PhD students, pull up a chair

I welcome applications in any of the areas above. Email caj21@st-andrews.ac.uk and mention you found this page at heather.cafe — I get a lot of generic PhD emails, and this helps me know you've actually looked at my work.

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