Chris Martens, Ph.D. cmar...@cs.cmu.edu CV as of April 2016

Warning: this page might be out of date! As of July 2016, I'm a professor at North Carolina State University.

I got my Ph.D. with the Principles of Programming group in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University, advised by Karl Crary and Frank Pfenning. I graduated in September 2015 with my thesis Programming Interactive Worlds with Linear Logic. After that, I did a postdoc with the Expressive Intelligence Studio at UC Santa Cruz.

Research

I build executable formal models of interactive and playful systems. I use formal methods such as proof theory to build better programming languages and analysis tools for game design, storytelling, computational creativity, and generative methods. More specifically, my interests and past research include tools like logic programming, logical frameworks, dependent type systems, algebraic and categorical methods, and functional programming, applied to endeavors like interactive fiction authoring, story generation, game design sketching, AI for social simulation, game mechanic and level generation, dialogue modeling, music and recipe generation, and multi-agent systems.

I keep a blog about my research and experiences in academia.

My thesis project contains a programming language designing generative narratives and game mechanics called Ceptre. The language is based on forward-chaining linear logic programming, a declaratve way to describe state change and user interactions.

Thesis page | Project repo

Peer-Reviewed Papers

• Chris Martens.
  "Ceptre: A Language for Modeling Generative Interactive Systems."
  In proceedings of Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment 2015.
  [pdf, 7 pages]
• Chris Martens, Joao F. Ferreira, Anne-Gwenn Bosser, and Marc Cavazza.
  "Generative Story Worlds as Linear Logic Programs."
  Intelligent Narrative Technologies 7, 2014.
  [pdf, 7 pages; talk slides (html)]
• Chris Martens, Anne-Gwenn Bosser, Joao F. Ferreira, and Marc Cavazza.
  "Linear Logic Programming for Narrative Generation."
  In proceedings of Logic Programming and Nonmonotonic Reasoning, 2013.
  [pdf, 6 pages]
• Chris Martens and Karl Crary.
  "LF in LF: Mechanizing the Metatheory of LF in Twelf."
  Logical Frameworks and Metalanguages: Theory and Practice, 2012.
  [pdf, 12 pages | project repo | talk slides]
• Charles Cusack, Chris Martens, and Priyanshu Mutreja.
  "Volunteer Computing Using Casual Games."
  In proceedings of Future Play International Conference on the Future of Game Design and Technology, 2006.
  [pdf]
• Ulas Bardak, Eugene Fink, Chris R Martens, Jamie Carbonell.
  "Scheduling with Uncertain Resources Part 3: Elicitation of Additional Data."
  In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 2006.
  [pdf]

Talks and Workshop Submissions

• Invited Talk: "Proofs as Stories," delivered at the UConn Logic Seminar, October 16, 2015. Slides!
• Invited Talk: "Ceptre: A Language for Modeling Interactive Worlds." Future Programming Workshop at Strange Loop 2015.
  ***** Watch the video!
• "Proof-Theoretic Study of Game Mechanics," delivered at the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) Doctoral Consortium: 3-page PDF; slides on SpeakerDeck
• "Creating and Analyzing Playable Narratives with Linear Logic," delivered at the CMU Graphics Lab Seminar, April 2015. Slides!
• "Modularity & Abstraction in Functional Programming," delivered at Compose Conference 2015:
  ***** Watch the video!
• "Linear Logic Programming," delivered at Strange Loop 2013.
  ***** Watch the video! | slides
• "Systems of Play as Linear Logic Programs," delivered at NJPLS May 2014. Slides: html, 86-page pdf
• "Languages for Computational Creativity," delivered at OBT 2014: talk (html, Twine) | abstract (2pg pdf)
• "Rule-based Interactive Fiction," delivered at OBT 2012: talk slides | talk abstract

Unpublished drafts and projects

• Linear Logic Programming for Narrative Generation: long version (draft)
• Logical analysis of logic programs, at INRIA Parsifal: internship report
• Type inference for a nested configuration language. (Google internship; not yet open-sourced.)
• Banyan, a distributed computation framework for recursive programs. For 15-712 Advanced & Distributed Operating Systems.
• Ordered Hybrid LF. As an undergraduate, I was advised by Frank Pfenning and Jason Reed on a senior thesis extending Hybrid LF to the case of ordered logic. pdf, 28 pages

Teaching

• In Spring 2014 I taught StuCo: Interactive Fiction. I wrote about it here: [guest post at Storycade]
• In Fall 2011 I TAed 15-210 Parallel and Sequential Data Structures and Algorithms.
• In Fall 2010 TAed 15-317 Constructive Logic.

Notes and Other Writing

• Sketchnotes and travelogue from Strange Loop 2014
• Sketchnotes from !!con
• The Contingent Transition Problem: [pdf]
• Canonical forms-style LF as presented in Computation and Deduction, Spring 2009: [pdf]

Other Outputs

• I maintain a list of programming languages (co)created by women. Please let me know if you have information to add to this list!
• I maintain a mailing list for Computational Narrative researchers.
• I maintain a mailing list for underrepresented groups in Programming Languages research.
• Here are my games, mainly interactive fiction.
• Here are some older comics, including a few travelogues.
• I occasionally make music with synthesizers, guitars, and vocal chords.
• I seem to be unusual in admitting that I really like Twitter.