Joan Krone joined the Denison faculty in 1990, having taught mathematics at Ohio Dominican College before earning her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Ohio State University, where she taught Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis before coming to Denison.
Her research is in the mathematical foundations of computer science, emphasizing mathematical reasoning about the formal specification and verification of software in the context of software engineering principles. Krone is a strong advocate of undergraduate research and has served as mentor to more than 30 undergraduate research students, many of whom have presented their work at professional conferences. She developed a discrete math course that introduced computer science applications of mathematical concepts and co-authored the textbook “Essential Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science” with Todd Feil. In addition to teaching computer science Krone is the Associate Director of the Lisska Center for Scholarly Engagement, which oversees the summer research program at Denison, as well as serving to advise students applying for a variety of prestigious scholarships such as Fulbright, Marshall, Rhodes, and others.
Research
My research lies in the field of formal methods for software engineering. The focus is on the formal specification of software in the context of software engineering principles developed by experts in the field over decades of research and practice. Recent NSF funding has supported the design and development of a new language, RESOLVE (REusable SOftware Language with VErification), that includes constructs for formal mathematical specifications to promote mathematical reasoning and proofs of program correctness. Krone’s work has included both the development of logic for reasoning about program correctness and the development of material needed in the computer science curriculum to support mathematical reasoning about programs.
Works
Selected Publications
- Gregory Kulczycki, Murali Sitaraman, Joan Krone, Joseph E. Hollingsworth, William F. Ogden, Bruce W. Weide, Paolo Bucci, Charles T. Cook, Svetlana Drachova, Blair Durkee, Heather Harton, Wayne Heym, Dustin Hoffman, Hampton Smith, Yu-Shan Sun, Aditi Tagore, Nighat Yasmin, and Diego Zaccai, A Language for Building Verified Software Components, Proceedings of ICSR, Pisa, Italy, July 2013.
- Joan Krone, Jason Hallstrom, Murali Sitaraman, CCSC 2011 Proceedings, “Mathematics throughout the CS Curriculum.”
- Murali Sitaraman, Bruce Adcock, Jeremy Avigad, Derek Bronish, Paolo Bucci, David Frazier, Harvey M. Friedman, Heather Harton, Wayne Heym, Jason Kirschenbaum, Joan Krone, Hampton Smith, and Bruce W. Weide, “Building a Push-Button RESOLVE Verifier: Progress and Challenges,” Formal Aspects of Computing, 2010, 34 pages.
- J. Krone, J.E. Hollingsworth, M. Sitaraman, and J.O. Hallstrom, “A Reasoning Concept Inventory for Computer Science,” Technical Report RSRG-10-01, School of Computing, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-0974, September, 2010, 6 pages.
- Sitaraman, Hallstrom, White, Drachova-Strang, harton, Leonard, Krone, Pak, “Engaging Students in Specification and Reasoning: Hands on Experimentation and Evaluation,” Proceedings of ITiCSE, July 5-8, 2009.
- Keown, H., Krone, J., & Sitaraman, M. , “Formal Program Verification.” The Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering. Wiley, 2008.
Other
Selected Student Research Projects
- Welch, D. 2011, 2012 “Modular Design and Verification in RESOLVE,” NSF student. Presentation at MCURCSM, November 2012.
- Behrend, S. 2007. “Logic for Program Verification.” DURF student. Presentation at SIGCSE, March, 2007. Presentation at MCURCSM, November, 2007.
- Fressola, A. 2004. “Integers by Induction.” Anderson student. Presentation at the National American Mathematical Society Conference, Phoenix, Arizona.
- Tawney, M. 2003 Anderson student. “Algorithm Analysis for the Object Oriented Paradigm.” 2002. Invited talk at The Ohio State University, March 13, 2003. Posters on the Hill, April 1, 2003.
- Dimitrov, V. summer 2001. “Zero-Divisor Graphs.” Presented at the ACM-SIGCSE Conference, February, 2002.