Professor Clinger focuses on the design, specification, and implementation of functional and higher-order programming languages. His research interests stem from programming languages’ ability to connect mathematically sophisticated theories of syntax and semantics to economically important details of computer hardware and software.

In the course of his career, Professor Clinger has proven the correctness of a commercial compiler’s algorithm for generating code, invented efficient algorithms for hygienic macro expansion and converting decimal scientific notation into the nearest binary floating-point approximation, and contributed to development of the IEEE/ANSI standard for Scheme.

In recent years, Professor Clinger and his PhD students have designed promising new algorithms for automatic garbage collection. Several of these algorithms have been tested in Larceny, which Clinger and his students originally developed as a vehicle for experimental research on compiler optimization and garbage collection. Larceny has become one of the leading multiplatform implementations of the Scheme programming language.