About me

I'm an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellow in the Programming Languages Research Group at the School of Computer Science, University of Bristol. Before this, I also did my PhD and undergraduate degree (MEng in Computer Science) at Bristol. Some of my interests include functional programming, type-level programming, and embedded domain-specific languages.

Research

I'm currently looking at bidirectional transformations for composing web applications, embedding techniques for languages that have "non-standard" semantics, and program slicing techniques for data provenance. During my PhD, I investigated how algebraic effects and effect handlers can be used to improve the design of probabilistic programming languages. I used these techniques to implement a type-safe, modular framework for programmable inference [λ], and an embedding of probabilistic models as first-class citizens [λ].

Other projects I've led include the application of recursion schemes for implementing and training neural networks [λ]; in particular, I show how neural networks can be represented as fixed-points of recursive data structures, and forward and back propagation as folds and unfolds over these structures.

Papers, etc.

Effects and Effect Handlers for Probabilistic Programming (pdf)
   M.Nguyen
^{Doctoral Thesis, 2023}
Effect Handlers for Programmable Inference (preprint, proceedings)
   M.Nguyen, R.Perera, M.Wang, S.Ramsay
^{Haskell Symposium, 2023}
Towards Type-driven Data Science in Idris (abstract, repository)
   O.Kammar, K.Marek, M.Nguyen, M.Steuwer, J.Walters, R.Wright
^{Languages for Inference Workshop, 2023}
Folding over Neural Networks (preprint, proceedings)
   M.Nguyen, N.Wu
^{Mathematics of Program Construction, 2022}
Modular Probabilistic Models via Algebraic Effects (preprint, proceedings, repository)
   M.Nguyen, R.Perera, M.Weng, N.Wu
^{International Conference on Functional Programming, 2022}
Linked visualisations via Galois dependencies (preprint, proceedings, repository)
   R.Perera, M.Nguyen, T.Petricek, M.Weng
^{Principles Of Programming Languages, 2022}
Composable, Modular Probabilistic Models (extended abstract, poster)
   M.Nguyen, R.Perera, M.Weng
^{International Conference on Functional Programming (SRC), 2021}
Composable, Modular Probabilistic Models (paper)
   M.Nguyen, R.Perera, M.Weng
^{Implementation and Application of Functional Languages, 2021}

Talks

Effects and Effect Handlers for Probabilistic Programming
^{PhD Defence, Sep 2023}
Effect Handlers for Programmable Inference
^{Haskell Symposium, Sep 2023 (video)}
^{Tech Talk @ The Alan Turing Institute, May 2023}
Modular Probabilistic Models via Algebraic Effects
^{International Conference on Functional Programming, Sep 2022 (video, slides)}
^{Programming Languages Seminar @ University of Edinburgh, May 2022 (slides)}
^{Tech Talk @ The Alan Turing Institute, Jan 2023}
Folding over Neural Networks
^{Mathematics of Program Construction, Sep 2022}
Composable, Modular Probabilistic Models
^{International Conference on Functional Programming (SRC), Sep 2021 (video, slides)}
^{Implementation and Application of Functional Languages, Sep 2021 (video, slides)}

Work + Studies

Sep 2023 - Current
EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellow in Programming Languages
hosted by Cristina David @ University of Bristol
Jun 2022 - Sep 2022
Research Intern: Dependently typed probabilistic programming for Idris2 (repositories)
supervised by Ohad Kammar @ University of Edinburgh
Jan 2020 - Sep 2023
PhD in Programming Languages
supervised by Meng Wang and Roly Perera @ University of Bristol
Sep 2016 - Oct 2020
MEng in Computer Science (first class)
supervised by Nicolas Wu @ University of Bristol

Teaching

2023
Supervisor for a 2nd year CS student in their research internship, on "Typed Functional Programming Techniques for Probabilistic Programming" @ University of Bristol.
2020 - 2021
Supervisor for a 4th year CS student in their masters dissertation, on "Deep Learning Architectures As Pure Functions" @ University of Bristol.
2019 - Current
Seminars and guest lectures to the Programming Languages Research Group and CS undergraduates @ University of Bristol.
2017 - Current
Teaching assistant for the CS units Advanced Topics in Programming Languages (4th year), Language Engineering (2nd year), and Functional Programming (1st year) @ University of Bristol.

Awards

2023 ESPRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship Award for the proposal "Robust, Reusable Computational Models via Typed Functional Programming"
2021 1st Place in the ICFP ACM Student Research Competition
2019 Best Machine Learning Dissertation, Bloomberg Award, University of Bristol
2018 Best Third Year Group Project, Graphcore Award, University of Bristol
2017 Top Ten Achieving CS Students, Netcraft Award, University of Bristol

Minh Nguyen