[1] He previously held the title of Distinguished University Professor at Western University, Ontario, where he served for periods as Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Director of the Ontario Research Centre for Computer Algebra.
Prior to this, he held positions at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights (USA) and INRIA and the University of Nice (France).
Professor Watt's areas of research include algorithms and systems for computer algebra, programming languages and compilers, mathematical handwriting recognition and document analysis.
He was one of the original authors of the Maple and Axiom computer algebra systems, and the principal architect of the Aldor programming language and its compiler at IBM Research.
Professor Watt was made Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of the West (Romania) in 2011 and was awarded the J.W.