🍂 Favonia

I am an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. My research interests lie in achieving high rigor in computer programs and mathematical proofs. In particular, I have been working on proof mechanization, type theory, programming language theory, and property-based testing. Check out my Ph.D. advising statement if you are interested.

🔬 Current Research

Links: 📄 papers 🗣️ talks 📦 artifacts 📜 thesis

✅ Program testing: exploiting typing information to reduce testing. See our POPL 2022 paper.
🧰 Development of proof assistants: reusable components for making proof assistants. See redprl.org.
📐 Synthetic homotopy theory: using (homotopy, cubical, etc.) type theory to study homotopy theory.

🧑 Advisees

Link: 🧑 all advisees

🧑‍🎓 Ph.D. Students

🧑‍🎓 Masters Students

Michael Zhang

📋 FAQ

🤝 Are You Taking New Students?

It depends on my current advising load. If you are interested in doing a Ph.D., you should email me, read my advising statement, and then apply to our program. Feel free to email me, but please include something specific to me or my research. If your email looks like a form email (using a generic template filled with my name, the title of my last paper, and my area), I will probably ignore it. Sorry about that.

Currently I have three Ph.D. students and one master’s student, so my hands are full and I cannot take more students. However, the numbers keep changing and I might forget to update this paragraph. You are still welcome to email me to discuss research and graduate schools as long as your email does not look like a form email.

📛 How to Cite Your Name in LaTeX?

I found Kuen-Bang {Hou (Favonia)} works best in LaTeX, BibTeX and Biber.

👤 What is Your Pronoun?

Any pronoun works for me. (Previously, I used they/them, and there’s nothing wrong with continuing using they/them.)

🌬️ What does “Favonia” Mean?

My names in everyday life are the sequences f-a-v-o-n-i-a and 西-風. They mean west wind. My governmental name is Kuen-Bang Hou (transliteration of the Mandarin name 侯昆邦). I go by Kuen-Bang Hou (Favonia) in academia. You are welcome to pronounce them in any reasonable language, dialect or accent. You can also transliterate them into any reasonable writing system.

💵 Did You Get Knuth’s Check?

I am aware that Knuth wanted to send me a check, but I was unable to reach them (Knuth or Knuth’s secretary) through emails.

🗡️ I Saw “Favonia” in a Game!

I know there’s a mighty weapon whose English name contains “Favonia.” The translation is excellent, but to me it is a new and fierce competitor in search engine optimization. (I avoided writing out the names of the game and the weapon here so that people can filter out those pages when using Google. 😉)

This page was made with GitHub-like CSS (licensed under MIT and modified by me).