Michael Norrish

Michael develops HOL4 and contributes to CakeML, helping researchers and software developers check proofs and preserve program behaviour during compilation. Contributions to seL4 connect this work to an operating-system kernel used in commercial products and ongoing research. These efforts matter to software quality because machine-checked reasoning provides a rigorous way to establish that software meets stated properties.

Michael Norrish is an Associate Professor at the Australian National University, specialising in formal verification and interactive theorem proving. After undergraduate study at Victoria University of Wellington, doctoral research at the University of Cambridge formalised the C programming language in 1999. A Cambridge research fellowship preceded a move to NICTA in Canberra in 2003, followed by joining ANU’s School of Computing in 2021.

As the primary developer of the HOL4 proof assistant, Michael works on both core proof-checking infrastructure and practical applications. Contributions to the CakeML project focus on verified compilation, ensuring executable machine code preserves mathematical guarantees of program behaviour.

Work on the seL4 microkernel brought Michael recognition as part of the team honoured with the ACM Software System Award. Co-authored research published in 2025 also advances verified computation and automation within HOL4, evaluated using the CakeML compiler backend to strengthen machine-checked software verification.