Dr. Robert Dustin Wehr
Work Experience
February 2020 – May 2020
Data Science and AI Engineer
There wasn't any AI to do as my title suggested, but I did fill an assortment of mostly-unremarkable tech needs. I did several data collections and basic processing/analysis, including a large one (250TB+) spread over a messy network of a bankrupt company. I helped set up some company knowledge management infrastructure, and helped the team cope with Office 365, which I won't be looking to use again! I improved the performance of their marketing-team created website, without breaking the frustratingly-messy conventions that make it generable from their content management system, but unfortunately that version is still only at http://stagingcopy.innov-8.ca.
August 2017 – August 2019
Research Engineer and Formal Logic/Languages Specialist
R&D lead for the development of open source software and specifications for writing legally binding contracts in formal languages, with support for formal verification, scenario exploration/visualization, natural language generation, and blockchain deployment.
Highlights
- Critical role in securing $15 million government/industry/academic collaboration grant for the Centre for Computational Law in Singapore, which opening in mid 2020. Lest there be any uncertainty, by "critical" I mean that it would not have happened without me!
- Designed and implemented the company’s planned-to-be open sourced DSL for computational legal contracts, with support for testing, model checking, scenario exploration, visualization, and some preliminary support for natural language generation and smart contract deployment.
- Python, Scala, Z3 and other SMTLib2 solvers, Timed Automata solvers, Coq
May 2015 – June 2017
CEO/Cofounder
See volunteer section.
September 2015 – September 2017
Software Engineering Consultant
Supervised an update of EXAKT, an advanced Condition Based Maintenance policy optimizer, for integration with Living Reliability's Mesh software.
Highlights
- Web, C++ (legacy)
January 2017 – January 2017
Software Engineering Consultant
Data processing and analysis for a project at the BP Whiting Refinery.
Highlights
- python, typescript (used my project Structure Together)
September 2016 – December 2016
Postdoc
Additional work on EXAKT (see Living Reliability job above), collaborating with the principal mathematician responsible for its methods.
Highlights
- Statistics, C++ (legacy)
July 2016 – August 2016
Software Developer / Machine Learning Consultant
LSTM recurrent neural net project for an art exhibit.
Highlights
- python
January 2013 – August 2013
Software Developer
TV and movie recommendation site. Hired after internship.
Highlights
- Machine Learning
- Scala, HTML/Javascript, Python, PostgreSQL
- https://www.pcworld.com/article/2044340/televisor-is-your-personalized-tv-critic-for-streaming-shows.html
January 2015 – April 2015
Lecturer
Introduction to the Theory of Computation (CSC236), a second-year proof-based course.
January 2014 – April 2014
Lecturer
Introduction to Computer Science (CSC148).
Highlights
- Python
September 2008 – January 2015
Some Graduate Studies Highlights
Highlights
- Presented my proof of a conjecture made by Anna Gál, Michal Koucký, and Pierre McKenzie in their 2008 journal paper “Incremental Branching Programs” at the BIRS workshop “Computational Complexity”, August 1-6, 2010. Writeup for the proof: https://arxiv.org/abs/1101.2705.
- Solved an open problem in the summer preceding gradschool that had four very smart complexity theorists stumped for a while (lower bound for fractional pebbling trees).
- Did a well-received project for Professor Geoffrey Hinton's Machine Learning graduate course, where my partner and I made some modest but definite/transferable improvements on the influential work of Ruslan Salakhutdinov, Andriy Mnih, and Geoffrey Hinton — theirs was the most successful algorithm used by the winners of the Netflix Prize, which was the first very-high-profile success for neural nets, kicking off the Deep Learning boom. Final writeup for the project: https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~wehr/restricted_boltzmann_machines_netflix_CSC2515report.pdf
- Gave a two-hour lecture on Software Transactional Memory for the graduate course Advanced Distributed Computing. I am now very knowledgeable on this subject.
September 2008 – April 2015
Teaching Assistant
Held several teaching assistantships throughout graduate studies, all of which I was encouraged to repeat.
Highlights
- Computability and Logic, graduate/undergraduate, multiple semesters
- Computational Complexity and Computability, multiple semesters
- Introduction to Computational Complexity, graduate
- Principles of Programming Languages
- Introduction to Theory of Computing, multiple semesters
- Help Centre for all CS courses, multiple semesters
May 2007 – August 2007
Student Researcher
Work on a prototype programming language, developed by Professor Brigitte Pientka, for writing provably-correct programs, especially complex syntax-manipulating programs such as compilers.
Highlights
- SML
- Twelf
June 2006 – December 2007
Teaching Assistant
Held several teaching assistantships throughout undergraduate studies. This is fairly common since the surge in CS enrollment, but was quite rare back then.
Highlights
- Logic and Computability, multiple semesters
- Principles of Statistics I
May 2006 – August 2006
Student Researcher
Recommendation systems research, supervised by Professor Greg Dudek.
Highlights
- MatLab
June 2005 – August 2005
Student Research Assistant
Highlights
- Worked on techniques for data mining of (primitive, by today’s standards!) "social networks" that depict e.g. communication relationships between possible terrorists.
- Software for processing and viewing/analyzing data from experiments that involved groups of military personnel interacting in a virtual space.
- Python, Java
May 2004 – September 2004
Student Research Assistant
Highlights
- In the Electrical Technology and Plasma Physics Branch.
- Performed experiments related to improving techniques for growing (in a plasma reactor) thin diamond films by boron doping.
- Wrote some code for Dr. Alan Garscadden for losslessly converting image files created by some old lab equipment to a standard format.
March 2015 – August 2017
Undergraduate Computer Science Tutor
January 2015 – September 2017
Web Developer
Fixed various problems / made various improvements on e-commerce site (BigCommerce).
Highlights
- HTML, Javascript
Awards
-
January 2017
Charity Intelligence
Volunteer of the Year
-
September 2008
NSERC
Postgraduate Scholarship M
Sep 2008 - Sep 2010 (renewed once)
-
September 2008
University of Toronto CS Department
Helen Sawyer Hogg Award
Graduate entrance scholarship
-
May 2007
McGill Faculty of Science
Science Undergraduate Research Award
Summer 2007
-
May 2006
NSERC / McGill
Undergraduate Student Research Award
Summer 2006
-
September 2004
McGill
Hugh Brock Scholarship
Undergrad entrance scholarship, 2004 - 2008
Volunteer
Charity Intelligence
February 2017 – March 2018
Web Developer
Made various improvements to the Charity Intelligence website, including a major feature to inform donors about higher performing charities that are similar to the one they are reading about.
Logic for Progress
May 2015 – June 2017
CEO/Cofounder
Logic for Progress is a registered non-profit that aims to advance the quality of deliberation on contentious social issues, in part by leveraging the high standards of formal deductive logic, which are higher than the standards of applied statistics, and much higher than those of philosophy. The proposed approach helps to "cut through the noise" to find the fundamental sources of disagreement, even for highly emotional, contentious issues, while also helping to avoid flawed reductionist mathematical modelling typical of economics and game theory.
Highlights
- Continuation and implementation of my PhD work
- Status: I suspect the world is not ready for this yet. My focus turned to Legalese in 2017, which is somewhat similar, but targets the less subjective and better funded domain of contract law.
Projects
- Structure Together:
- Mingaling:
Contact
118 Christie St, Apt #2
Toronto, Ontario M6G 3B2 Canada
647 238 9539
Education
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2015 2008
University of Toronto
PhD/MSc
Computer Science
Courses- Advanced Distributed Computing
- Machine Learning
- Algorithm Design, Analysis and Theory
- Theory of Distributed Computing
- Fundamentals of Cryptography
- Algorithms for Solving Propositional Theories
- Complexity Theory
- Topics in Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
-
2004 2008
McGill University
BSc
Computer Science
Courses- Probabilistic Reasoning and Artificial Intelligence
- Formal Verification
- Probabilistic Analysis of Algorithms
- Automated Reasoning
- Language-Based Security
- Algorithm Design Techniques
- Theoretical Programming Languages
Skills
Advanced Knowledge
Algorithms
Formal Logic
Language Design
Theory of Distributed Computing
Automated Theorem Proving
Formal Specification
Computational Complexity Theory
Bayesian Reasoning
Solid Knowledge
Neural Networks
Linux
Formal Verification
Web Applications
PLs (good)
Python
Scala
TypeScript
JavaScript
Java
PLs (ok-rusty)
C
C++
MatLab
Mathematica
Coq
SML
Publications
PhD Thesis: Rigorous Deductive Argumentation for Socially Relevant Issues
University of Toronto Press
30 January 2015
Using formal logic to improve deliberation/argumentation on questions it is usually thought unsuitable for: those involving significant vagueness, subjectiveness, and uncertainty.
Challenges and Examples of Rigorous Deductive Reasoning About Socially-Relevant Issues
Trends in Logic XIV
01 May 2014
Roughly a small fraction of PhD Thesis
Pebbles and Branching Programs for the Tree Evaluation Problem
ACM Transactions on Computation Theory
01 May 2010
Stephen A. Cook, Pierre McKenzie, Dustin Wehr, Mark Braverman, Rahul Santhanam
Branching Programs for Tree Evaluation
Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science
01 January 2009
Mark Braverman, Stephen A. Cook, Pierre McKenzie, Rahul Santhanam, Dustin Wehr
Fractional Pebbling and Thrifty Branching Programs
IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science
15 December 2008
Mark Braverman, Stephen A. Cook, Pierre McKenzie, Rahul Santhanam, Dustin Wehr
References
| Cofounder/Director of Legalese | mengwong@gmail.com | https://www.linkedin.com/in/mengwong
| Managing Director of Charity Intelligence | kbahen@charityintelligence.ca | https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-bahen-28993511
| Founder of Optimal Maintenance Decisions (OMDEC) | murray.wiseman@livingreliability.com | http://www.livingreliability.com/hven/?p=193
| PhD advisor | sacook@cs.toronto.edu | https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/cook_n991950.cfm
| PhD advisor | urquhart@cs.toronto.edu | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alasdair_Urquhart