Elizabeth Polgreen

Elizabeth Polgreen is a Lecturer (~Assistant Professor) in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, where she conducts research in programming languages and formal methods, particularly program synthesis and verification. She is affiliated with the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science and contributes to the Programming Languages and Software Engineering research area.

Her research focuses on formal program synthesis, leveraging techniques such as symbolic reasoning, genetic algorithms, and large language models to improve the scalability and automation of software verification. She explores applications in code modernization, tensor program lifting, and explainable AI. Her work bridges programming languages, AI, and formal methods to build trustworthy systems.

Her recent publications (2020–2025) span top venues including PLDI, CGO, AAAI, CAV, OOPSLA, and NeurIPS, showing a strong trend in neuro-symbolic synthesis, grammar inference, and verification of AI and low-resource code. She has secured competitive funding, including a Royal Academy of Engineering fellowship and an Amazon Research Award.

Scientific awards include:

• Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship
• Amazon Research Award
• Best Paper Award at GPCE
• Distinguished Paper Award from CGO

She advises multiple PhD students, including Yixuan Li, Alexander Brauckmann, and José Wesley de Souza Magalhães, often in collaboration with Professor Mike O'Boyle. Her research is supported by grants from the Royal Academy of Engineering and Amazon. She has delivered keynotes, tutorials, and a TEDx talk, contributing actively to outreach and education in formal methods.

She leads a research group within the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science, focusing on trustworthy systems through synthesis and verification. Her team includes PhD students and collaborators working on cutting-edge topics in program analysis, AI for code, and compiler design.