Harrison Goldstein (original) (raw)

About Me

I am an Assistant Professor in theDepartment of Computer Science and Engineeringat theUniversity at Buffalo. Previously, I was a postdoc at the University of Maryland, working with Leo Lampropoulos as a Victor Basili Postdoctoral Fellow. I earned my PhD working with Professor Benjamin C. Pierce at the University of Pennsylvania.

In my research, I make the software development process safer and more effective by building tools for software validation that address the needs of real users. My main area of study is programming languages, but I borrow motivation and techniques from both software engineering and human-computer interaction as well. Currently my projects center around the theoretical, practical, and human aspects of property-based testing and formal methods.

I love to collaborate, so feel free to reach out if you have anything you'd like to discuss.

News

June 19, 2025 Received SIGPLAN's John C. Reynolds Doctoral Dissertation Award. Congratulations to Rachit Nigam who also received the award this year!

May 7, 2025 Accepted a position as Assistant Professor at the University at Buffalo!

Mar 11, 2025 Received the Morris and Dorothy Rubinoff Award from the University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science.

Dissertation

• Property-Based Testing for the People
  Harrison Goldstein
  advised by Benjamin C. Pierce
  approved by Stephanie Weirich (committee chair), Andrew Head, Mayur Naik, Hila Peleg
  Defended May 24, 2024 PDF Talk

Selected Publications

• Tuning Random Generators: Property-Based Testing as Probabilistic Programming
  Ryan Tjoa, Poorva Garg, Harrison Goldstein, Todd Millstein, Benjamin C. Pierce, Guy Van den Broeck
  OOPSLA 2025 Preprint
• QED in Context: An Observation Study of Proof Assistant Users
  Jessica Shi, Cassia Torczon, Harrison Goldstein, Benjamin Pierce, Andrew Head
  OOPSLA 2025 Preprint
• FEDT: Supporting Experiment Design and Execution in HCI Fabrication Research
  Valkyrie Savage, Harrison Goldstein, Nóra Püsök, Jia Yi Ren, Bhaskar Dutt, Chandrakana Nandi, Lora Oehlberg
  UIST 2025 DOI
• Designing Proof Deautomation in Rocq
  Jessica Shi, Cassia Torczon, Harrison Goldstein, Andrew Head, Benjamin Pierce
  PLATEAU 2025 PDF
• Tyche: Making Sense of Property-Based Testing Effectiveness
  Harrison Goldstein, Jeffrey Tao, Zac Hatfield-Dodds, Benjamin C. Pierce, Andrew Head
  UIST 2024 PDF
• Mica: Automated Differential Testing for OCaml Modules
  Ernest Ng, Harrison Goldstein, Benjamin C. Pierce
  OCaml Workshop 2024 PDF
• Demonstrating FEDT: Supporting Characterization Experiments in Fabrication Research
  Valkyrie Savage, Nóra Püsök, Harrison Goldstein, Chandrakana Nandi, Jia Yi Ren and Lora Oehlberg
  SCF 2024 Demo
• Stream Types
  Joseph W Cutler, Christopher Watson, Emeka Nkurumeh, Phillip Hilliard, Harrison Goldstein, Caleb Stanford, Benjamin C. Pierce
  PLDI 2024 PDF
• Daedalus: Safer Document Parsing
  Iavor Diatchki, Mike Dodds, Harrison Goldstein, Bill Harris, David Holland, Benoit Razet, Cole Schlesinger, Simon Winwood
  PLDI 2024 DOI
• Property-Based Testing in Practice (Distinguished Paper)
  Harrison Goldstein, Joseph W. Cutler, Daniel Dickstein, Benjamin C. Pierce, Andrew Head
  ICSE 2024 PDF
• Reflecting on Random Generation (Distinguished Paper)
  Harrison Goldstein, Samantha Frohlich, Meng Wang, Benjamin C. Pierce
  ICFP 2023 PDF Talk
• Etna: An Evaluation Platform for Property-Based Testing
  Jessica Shi, Alperen Keles, Harrison Goldstein, Benjamin C. Pierce, Leonidas Lampropoulos
  ICFP 2023 Experience Report PDF
• Parsing Randomness
  Harrison Goldstein, Benjamin C. Pierce
  OOPSLA 2022 PDF
• Some Problems with Properties: A Study on Property-Based Testing in Industry
  Harrison Goldstein, Joseph W. Cutler, Adam Stein, Andrew Head, Benjamin C. Pierce
  HATRA 2022 PDF Slides
• Everybody Clap Your Hands: The Cha-Cha Slide is Turing Complete
  Harrison Goldstein
  SIGBOVIK 2022 PDF
• Do Judge a Test by its Cover: Combining Combinatorial and Property-Based Testing
  Harrison Goldstein, John Hughes, Leonidas Lampropoulos, Benjamin C. Pierce
  ESOP 2021 PDF Video

Talks & Speaking

• Metaprogramming the Next Generation of Testing Tools
  Lean Together 2026 VOD
• _The Best New Programming Language is a Proof Assistant_DC Systems 006 VOD
• Haskell Interlude 59
  Haskell Interlude Podcast
• My PhD Compass: 6 Ways to Guide a PhD Towards Success
  PLMW @ ICFP 2024 VOD
• Property-Based Testing in Practice
  Disseminate Podcast Podcast
• Consider Collaboration with Samantha Frohlich
  PLMW @ POPL 2024 VOD
• TheForkJoin Episode 2
  TheForkJoin Podcast Podcast
• Some Problems with Properties
  NJPLS October 2022 Abstract
• Reflecting on Random Generation
  NJPLS May 2022 Abstract

Other Content

• Think Globally, Discuss PL Locally
  Harrison Goldstein, Michael Greenberg, Noam Zilberstein
  SIGPLAN PL Perspectives - September 16, 2025 Post
• Conferences after COVID: An Early-Career Perspective
  Joseph W. Cutler, Harry Goldstein, Andrew K. Hirsch, Jaemin Hong, Chandrakana Nandi
  SIGPLAN PL Perspectives - March 25, 2021 Post
• Delimited Continuations and Monads
  Harrison Goldstein
  Unpublished PhD Milestone Draft

Featured Blog Posts

• A Fun Little Mocktail

Sep 16, 2024

• Don't Give a No-Op Talk

Apr 22, 2024

• The (Regular) Language of Dance

Apr 2, 2018

• Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Feb 24, 2019

Coordinates

Website source on GitHub