Dr Chris Jefferson
Dr Chris Jefferson
Director of Postgraduate Research
Reader - School of Computer Science
Email: caj21@st-andrews.ac.uk
Office: JC0.24
Phone: +44 (0)1334 463272
Dr. Jefferson is a researcher at the School of Computer Science at the University of St. Andrews. His main research interests are:
- Constraint Programming
- Constraint Programming is the research topic that takes the majority of my time. He is one of the primary developers of the Minion constraint solver, and has published papers on a variety of areas relating to both solving, and using constraint solvers. If you have any issues with Minion, or just have any general questions about constraint programming, feel free to ask him.
- Computational Group Theory
- One of his current major applications of constraint programming is computational group theory. This is a new research area for him and he is interested in any search problems in mathematics. He will shortly be releasing a new constraint solver specialised for group theory problems.
- Automated Game Generation
- Another application of constraint programming he is interested in is automated game generation.
- Software Engineering
- While he has done relatively little research in software engineering, he does a lot of programming. He is on the C++ standards committee, and has written various pieces of software, including an iPhone game. He is continuing to do research into combining computer games and CP.
Recent Publications
- Huczynska, S, Jefferson, C & Nepšinská, S 2021, 'Strong external difference families in abelian and non-abelian groups', Cryptography and Communications , vol. First Online. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12095-021-00473-3
- Attieh, S, Dang, N, Jefferson, C, Miguel, I & Nightingale, P 2019, Athanor: high-level local search over abstract constraint specifications in Essence. in S Kraus (ed.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-19). International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence, pp. 1056-1063, Twenty-Eighth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-19), Macao, China, 10/08/19. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2019/148
- The GAP Group, Behrends, R, Breuer, T, Horn, M, Hulpke, A, Jefferson, CA, Konovalov, A, Linton, SA, Lübeck, F, Mitchell, JD, Pfeiffer, MJ, Siccha, S & Torpey, MC, GAP – Groups, Algorithms, and Programming, Version 4.10.1, 2019, Software. <https://www.gap-system.org/Releases/4.10.1.html>
- The GAP Group, Behrends, R, Breuer, T, Horn, M, Hulpke, A, Jefferson, CA, Konovalov, A, Linton, SA, Lübeck, F, Mitchell, JD, Pfeiffer, MJ, Siccha, S & Torpey, MC, GAP – Groups, Algorithms, and Programming, Version 4.10.2, 2019, Software. <https://www.gap-system.org/Releases/4.10.2.html>
- Jefferson, C, Jonauskyte, E, Pfeiffer, M & Waldecker, R 2019, 'Minimal and canonical images', Journal of Algebra, vol. 521, pp. 481-506. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jalgebra.2018.11.009
- Jefferson, C, Pfeiffer, M & Waldecker, R 2019, 'New refiners for permutation group search', Journal of Symbolic Computation, vol. 92, pp. 70-92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsc.2017.12.003
- Akgun, O, Attieh, SWA, Gent, IP, Jefferson, CA, Miguel, IJ, Nightingale, PW, Salamon, AZ, Spracklen, P & Wetter, JP 2018, A framework for constraint based local search using ESSENCE. in J Lang (ed.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence, pp. 1242-1248, 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the 23rd European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Stockholm, Sweden, 13/07/18. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2018/173
- Akgun, O, Gent, IP, Jefferson, CA, Miguel, IJ, Nightingale, PW & Salamon, AZ 2018, Automatic discovery and exploitation of promising subproblems for tabulation. in J Hooker (ed.), Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming: 24th International Conference, CP 2018, Lille, France, August 27-31, 2018, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 11008, Springer, pp. 3-12, 24th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2018), Lille, France, 27/08/18. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98334-9_1
- Gent, IP, Jefferson, CA & Nightingale, PW 2018, Complexity of n-Queens completion (extended abstract). in J Lang (ed.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence, pp. 5608-5611, 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the 23rd European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Stockholm, Sweden, 13/07/18. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2018/794
- The GAP Group, Behrends, R, Breuer, T, Horn, M, Hulpke, A, Jefferson, CA, Konovalov, A, Linton, SA, Lübeck, F, Mitchell, JD, Pfeiffer, MJ, Siccha, S & Torpey, MC, GAP – Groups, Algorithms, and Programming, Version 4.10.0, 2018, Software. <https://www.gap-system.org/Releases/4.10.0.html>