John Thistle

Dr. John Thistle is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo, affiliated with the Waterloo Formal Methods (WatForm) research group. His research focuses on control of discrete event systems, formal synthesis/verification, and applications to software development, with emphasis on decidability and complexity of controller synthesis. He holds a PhD from the University of Toronto (1991) and has taught courses such as BME 356 (Control Systems), ECE 108/208 (Discrete Mathematics), and MTE 481/482 (Mechatronics Design Projects).

Research interests include formal methods in hardware/software engineering, cybersecurity, and infrastructure integrity. His work bridges traditional control engineering with distributed software systems design.

Publications span topics like parameterized network analysis (IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2024) and deadlock analysis in ring topologies (2014). He currently supervises graduate students through Waterloo's formal methods research program.