Andrew D. Gordon is a computer scientist specializing in formal methods, AI, and programming languages.
As Science Advisor at the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA), Andy advises the Safeguarded AI programme on cybersecurity, AI, and formal methods. As Science Advisor at Cogna, Andy leads research on delivering software from natural language, including DSL design, finding ambiguities in specifications, and testing and verification of AI-generated applications with various formal methods.
Before joining Cogna as an early employee in 2023, Andy had a 26 year career at Microsoft Research. As Partner Research Manager, Andy led a diverse team of researchers and engineers to evolve Excel as an end-user programming language. He made significant contributions to the development of natural language formulas using generative AI in Copilot for Excel, formula features like LET/LAMBDA, the Calc.ts client-side execution engine for Excel formulas, and Excel Labs.
Andy was recognised as a 2020 Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for his research on programming languages: their principles, logic, usability, and trustworthiness.
Andy is now Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh, following 12 years as full Professor. His PhD research at Cambridge contributed to the design of monadic I/O in Haskell, with his ASCII art “»=” inspiring the Haskell logo. During his postdoc at Chalmers University he pioneered the use of the locally nameless representation in formal proofs.