John Peterson is interested in programming language implementation. As the level of abstraction in programming languages increases, compilers and programming environments must bridge an ever widening gap between the programmer and the machine. This gap requires increasingly complex compilers but also presents a greater opportunity for program transformation and optimization. Peterson's research includes the development of new program transformations and optimizations, the evaluation of different compilation techniques, and the development of efficient and effective algorithms to carry out the compilation process. He is also interested in programming language design and developing integrated programming environments.
Peterson currently directs the implementation of Haskell, a newly developed purely functional language. He is also interested in mixed language programming and has developed an interface between Haskell and imperative languages.