Robert Harper, a professor in the Computer Science Department, has received the 2021 ACM SIGPLAN Programming Languages Achievement Award in recognition of his significant and lasting contributions to the field.

Considered among the top honors in the field of programming languages, the award includes a $5,000 prize and was presented at SIGPLAN's Principles of Programming Languages conference in January.

The organization recognized Harper, who has been on the CMU faculty since 1988, not only for his foundational work in type theory and its use in the design, specification, implementation and verification of modern programming languages but also for his mentorship. Harper's influential work includes the Typed Intermediate Language (TIL) compiler system, along with the books "Programming in Standard ML" and "Practical Foundations for Programming Languages," which continue to impact the teaching of programming languages.

More information about the award is available on the ACM SIGPLAN website.