I am interested broadly in the fields of programming languages and software engineering, especially where they intersect. Specifically, my research focuses on program analysis, programming language semantics, and program verification, with a goal of helping developers create more reliable software systems while being better able to understand the systems they are building. I’m also interested in using ideas from language workbenches and language semantics to turn these ideas into tools that can be used both by developers and by other researchers. As part of this, I am a continuing contributor to Rascal, a meta-programming language for program analysis, program transformation, and programming language implementation. I’m also still an active user of the Maude system, focusing on uses of Maude for language specification and analysis.

Interests
  • Programming Languages
  • Program Analysis
  • Software Engineering
Education

  • PhD in Computer Science

    University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  • BS in Computer Science

    Western Illinois University

Teaching
Advising, Summer and Fall 2025

Information on advising during the Spring 2025 semester for Summer and Fall 2025.

Mar 20, 2025
Courses Taught

Look here for the list of courses I've taught, including syllabi.

Mar 20, 2025
Students
Students

Look here for information on the students I've worked with.

Jan 31, 2022
Recent Publications
Mark Hills, James B. Fenwick, Jr. (2024). Starting a Civic Engagement Capstone: An Experience Report. CCSC-SE 2024.
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Kyle Adams, Aleksei Vilkomir, Mark Hills (2023). A Comparison of Machine Learning Code Quality in Python Scripts and Jupyter Notebooks. CCSC-SE 2023.
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Luke Swearngan, Mark Hills (2023). Enabling Go Program Analysis in Rascal. SCAM 2023.
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James Paterson, Joshua Adams, Laurie White, Andrew Csizmadia, D. Cenk Erdil, Derek Foster, Mark Hills, Zain Kazmi, Karthik Kuber, Sajid Nazir, Majd Sakr, Lee Stott (2021). Designing Dissemination and Validation of a Framework for Teaching Cloud Fundamentals. ITiCSE 2021.
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Carolyn Talcott, Sofia Ananieva, Kyungmin Bae, Benoit Combemale, Robert Heinrich, Mark Hills, Narges Khakpour, Ralf Reussner, Bernhard Rumpe, Patrizia Scandurra, Hans Vangheluwe, Francisco Durán, Steffen Zschaler (2021). Composing Model-Based Analysis Tools, Chapter 2: Foundations. Composing Model-Based Analysis Tools.
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Recent & Upcoming Talks
Mark Hills, James B. Fenwick, Jr. (2024). Starting a Civic Engagement Capstone: An Experience Report.
PDF
Mark Hills (2024). Program Analysis and Verification with Rewriting Logic and Rascal.
PDF
Kyle Adams, Aleksei Vilkomir, Mark Hills (2023). A Comparison of Machine Learning Code Quality in Python Scripts and Jupyter Notebooks.
PDF
Luke Swearngan, Mark Hills (2023). Enabling Go Program Analysis in Rascal.
PDF
Mark Hills (2023). Supporting Analysis of SQL Queries in PHP AiR.
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Projects
Go Program Analysis and Verification

We are building a program analysis environment for the Go programming language using both Rascal and Maude. Potential Projects I am looking to work with students on the following projects related to this.

Sep 22, 2024
Jupyter Notebooks: Code Quality and Comprehension

We are interested in looking at the quality of Jupyter notebooks, as well as techniques to help users of these notebooks (especially novice users) use them for creating machine learning code.

Sep 22, 2024
PHP Program Analysis and Comprehension

We are building a program analysis environment for the Go programming language using both Rascal and Maude. Potential Projects I am looking to work with students on the following projects related to this.

Sep 22, 2024
Software Engineering Education

I am interested in helping students learn how to develop software using cloud technologies and how to work effectively in teams. Potential Projects I am looking to work with students on the following projects related to this.

Sep 22, 2024