Q&A: Jeffrey Foster, newly-hired professor of computer science

This fall, Tufts welcomed a group of new professors spanning a wide range of departments, experiences and backgrounds including 27 new professors in 14 different departments within the School of Arts and Sciences and eight professors across five departments within the School of Engineering. Jeffrey Foster is a new professor of computer science in the School of Engineering with over 15 years of teaching experience under his belt. The Daily sat down with Foster in order to learn more about his experiences as a professor and researcher.

Tufts Daily (TD): How did you get your start in computer science? Jeffrey Foster (JF): I've always been interested in computing. I took a very straight path; I thought when I entered college I might be interested in computer science, and I majored in it [at Cornell University], and indeed I was interested in it. I went straight from college to grad school where I got my Ph.D. in computer science [at University of California Berkeley] and then became a faculty member in the department of computer science at University of Maryland, College Park for the last 15 and a half years. Now I've joined the Tufts CS department.

TD: What are your research interests? JF: I'm interested in programming languages, software engineering and security. Mainly, anything that has to do with helping people write software more easily, make software better, find bugs [and] show that software is correct, as well as secure and safe to use. Advances in computer hardware have been revolutionary in many ways, we rely on computers everyday, and part of the reason we can rely on them is because there's hardware out there that gives us fast computing. But an equal part is the software that goes with computers, the instructions that tell computers what to do. It's amazing because you can change what a computer does by changing its software.

TD: You have been a professor your entire career. Is there a reason you prefer academia to industry? JF: Computing is a field where I think you can do amazing things both in academia and in industry. I like being in academia because I love teaching, interacting with students and helping students improve their understanding of computing or whatever they're trying to learn. I spend a lot of time in research as well; research is very exciting because I think of research as trying to invent the future, lay the groundwork, so that people in industry, who have a lot of other pressures, when they find a problem, there is some level of intellectual understanding that's already been discovered about it and they then have something to build on to do even better. We [in academia] have a privilege of inventing the future and trying to do things that people in industry can't do or can't think about: think big, think long-term, think foundational, think more abstractly.

TD: What drew you to Tufts? JF: I decided about a year ago that I wanted to move back to the Boston area, being from the area myself and I still have family here. I was looking around for possibilities; Tufts is fantastic, and Tufts made me an offer so I accepted it. I felt at home in the computer science department at Maryland, and I've felt at home here very quickly. The things that I like about Tufts in particular are that it's a very friendly place, people put a lot of care and thought into their work, both research and teaching, which I think is great. Also, the students are great too, they're exceptional.

TD: You touched on the balance between research and teaching at Tufts. What are you teaching this semester? JF: This semester I'm teaching a graduate level special topics class called "Program Analysis, Verification, and Synthesis," which covers part of the kinds of research that I do. I'm trying to decide what will be most useful for me to teach in the spring. Right now, I'm leaning towards teaching a software engineering class.

TD: Do you have any specific goals or things you hope to accomplish within your first year at Tufts? What are you most looking forward to? JF: My major goal is to establish a research program with students here, and collaborators either here or possibly in the Boston area. As a faculty member, I have Ph.D. students and there's a certain pipeline of students coming in, staying for several years, and then graduating, so I need to get new students to join my group as the senior students graduate. One thing that I care a lot about, and did a lot of work on at Maryland, was graduate education, so I'm on the lookout for opportunities to help improve the graduate program here. One experiment I'm trying this fall is an informal weekly seminar, in which I have faculty members come in and talk about various research skills that students learn in their graduate education and give a broad perspective on them. So far we've had sessions on 'why research,' which really means 'why get a Ph.D.'; how to read research papers; how to generate good ideas. In the future we're going to have people talk about writing research papers, doing interdisciplinary research with computer science, how to network and collaborate with people and various other topics.

TD: Computer science is obviously a huge part of your life, but what are your interests and passions outside of your field? JF: Maybe the most surprising thing is that one of my hobbies is making chocolates. I buy large quantities of chocolate and then turn it into the finished product. I bought about 81 pounds of chocolate a month or two ago. It comes in either boxes or bags of small maybe 1 inch discs, then I melt that down and have to temper it so that it forms the right consistency, has the right snap or texture in your mouth. Then I can either make hand dipped chocolates, where I make a ganache, which is chocolate plus butter plus cream plus flavorings, or make molded chocolates. I wouldn't consider [making chocolates] a side hustle, I give them away to friends. I suppose one advantage of Boston is that it's a little colder here and it needs to be cool to make chocolates. I make the chocolates in my home kitchen and the one crazy thing I have, in addition to 81 pounds of chocolate, is a machine that only does one thing, which is let you melt chocolate and bring it to temper. [This machine] is fabulous because then you just have this bowl filled with liquid chocolate that you can do whatever you want with, and it turns out that even if you mess up, the results still taste really good.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.