Tej Chajed

Tej Chajed is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he conducts research in formal verification of systems software. His work focuses on building and proving the correctness of critical systems, particularly file systems and concurrent software.

Dr. Chajed earned his PhD from MIT in the PDOS group, followed by a one-year postdoc at VMware Research before joining UW-Madison. His academic journey reflects a strong commitment to bridging theoretical formal methods with practical systems implementation.

Chajed's research centers on formal verification techniques for systems software, with particular emphasis on concurrent and crash-safe systems. His work aims to eliminate bugs in critical software through mathematical proofs of correctness. Key contributions include DaisyNFS (a verified concurrent file system), the Perennial framework for reasoning about crash safety, and Goose for connecting proofs to Go code. His research spans the intersection of programming languages, operating systems, and formal methods, developing practical tools that bring verification to real-world systems.

His recent publications demonstrate a consistent trajectory toward more practical and scalable verification techniques for increasingly complex systems. The research shows progression from foundational verification frameworks to applied work on specific systems like file systems, journaling, and distributed protocols. A notable trend is the focus on making verification more accessible and practical for systems developers, bridging the gap between theoretical formal methods and real-world software engineering.

Dr. Chajed serves on numerous program committees including OSDI 2025 PC, PLDI 2024 PC, SySDW 2023 PC, ECOOP 2023 ERC, CPP 2023 PC, POPL 2023 PC, PLDI 2022 PC, POPL 2022 AEC, EuroDW 2021 PC, POPL 2021 AEC, PLDI 2020 AEC, POPL 2020 AEC, and SOSP 2019 AEC, reflecting his standing in the systems and programming languages research community.

In teaching, Chajed has developed and instructed courses on systems verification, operating systems, and protocol verification. He previously helped create MIT's 6.826 (Principles of Computer Systems) during his PhD. His passion for technical communication was cultivated during his time as a Communication Fellow in the EECS Communication Lab at MIT, where he continues to offer guidance to students on writing and presentation skills.

His research group at UW-Madison focuses on advancing the state of the art in systems verification, with current projects centered around practical verification frameworks for concurrent and crash-safe systems.