Research
Timothy L. Hinrichs is a researcher in Computational Logic: the branch of Computer Science concerned with the representation and processing of information in the form of logical statements (e.g. Prolog and first-order logic). In particular, he designs and implements systems that embrace logical contradictions.
Logical contradictions are pervasive both in the real world and in the digital world. In the real world, humans cope with contradictions on a regular basis, e.g. two doctors giving differing opinions about the right course of treatment. In the digital world on the other hand, computer systems may not recognize that a contradiction exists or may not be able to differentiate one contradiction from another. Computer systems built assuming contradiction-free information will often behave erratically when that assumption is violated. Because logical languages are a natural formalism for describing and reasoning about contradictions, results in this area draw upon and contribute to Computational Logic.
Hinrichs also works in computer security, relying on results from Computational Logic to build systems with strong, mathematical guarantees. Computational Logic is especially pertinent to the branch of computer security focused on policy-based system administration, where users encode their desired security and privacy policies in a logical language and rely on the system to enforce those policies automatically. Such systems must process the logical policy language efficiently, identify contradictions arising in collaborative settings, and operate reasonably even in the midst of contradictory policies.
