Daniel Smith is a Senior Lecturer in English Language & Literature, specializing in Early Modern English Literature, Digital Humanities, and Letterlocking. His research explores the intersection of textual analysis, historical security practices, and material culture. Research Trends: His work focuses on Renaissance epistolary practices, including cryptographic methods like letterlocking, and extends to digital reconstruction technologies for sealed documents. He also examines literary networks (e.g., John Donne, Thomas Kyd) and socio-historical contexts of early modern women’s writings. Scientific Awards: Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2019) Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (2017) Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (2025) John Donne Society Distinguished Publication Award (2011) University English Book Prize (2016) Academic Contributions: Editor of Liber amicorum H. R. Woudhuysen , a bibliographical tribute, and key works on Thomas Kyd and the Conway Papers. His virtual exhibitions and digital tools (e.g., letterlocking.org) bridge historical scholarship and technology.
Jonathan Protzenko is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Azure Research , focusing on advancing the theory and practice of software verification through formal methods and type systems. His work bridges critical security gaps in modern programming languages, with verified code integrated into major software like BoringSSL, Linux kernel, Python, and Firefox. PhD in Computer Science from INRIA Paris (2014) Formerly at Microsoft Research (9 years) and INRIA's Gallium team (2010–2014) His research spans verified cryptography (EverCrypt, HACL*), Rust verification (Aeneas, Eurydice), and computational law (Catala). Recent projects include: Rust verification (2022–present): Aeneas and Eurydice toolchains for bidirectional Rust-C compilation Verified protocol stacks (2019–present): Noise*, MLS*, and Signal* implementations Formal computational law (2020–2022): Catala for formalizing legal texts Open-source impact (2009–present): Maintaining Thunderbird add-ons His 15 most recent publications (2025–2021) highlight trends in Rust verification , secure messaging protocols , and formal methods for legal frameworks . Scientific accolades include the Internet Defense Prize and SIGPLAN Research Highlight . Notable advisees include Théophile Wallez and Denis Merigoux , who won the Gilles Kahn PhD Award . His work involves collaborations with startups like Cryspen and formal verification toolchains like KreMLin .
Jo Van Bulck is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at KU Leuven's Faculty of Engineering Science, where he leads research in the Distributed and Secure Software (DistriNet) lab. His work focuses on security at the hardware-software boundary, particularly examining trusted execution environments and microarchitectural side-channel vulnerabilities. Dr. Van Bulck completed his Master's thesis on 'Secure Resource Sharing for Embedded Protected Module Architectures' at KU Leuven in 2015, receiving both the VASCO and BELCLIV thesis awards. He earned his PhD in 2020 with the dissertation 'Microarchitectural Side-Channel Attacks for Privileged Software Adversaries,' which received multiple prestigious awards including the ACM SIGSAC Doctoral Dissertation Award, ERCIM STM PhD Award, and FWO/IBM Innovation Award. His research primarily investigates vulnerabilities in trusted execution environments like Intel SGX, with seminal work on attacks such as Foreshadow, LVI, and ZombieLoad. His publications consistently appear in top security venues including IEEE S&P, USENIX Security, and ACM CCS. His research group has made significant contributions to understanding memory isolation failures, interrupt handling vulnerabilities, and developing principled approaches to validate enclave security properties. Dr. Van Bulck's work has profoundly impacted both academia and industry, with multiple CVE assignments for discovered vulnerabilities and direct influence on hardware and software security practices. His recent research focuses on extending security principles to low-end microcontrollers and developing automated validation frameworks for trusted execution environments. ACM SIGSAC Doctoral Dissertation Award (2021) FWO/IBM Innovation Award (2021) ERCIM WG STM Best Ph.D. Thesis Award (2021) Best Paper with Artifacts Award (SysTEX 2025) Distinguished Paper Award (EuroS&P 2025) Cybersecurity Artifacts Competition and Impact Award (ACSAC 2023) Dr. Van Bulck advises multiple PhD students including Márton Bognár (completed 2025) and Fritz Alder (completed 2023), and regularly supervises numerous master's theses. He leads several major research projects including 'Cross-Layer Systems Security for Trusted Execution Environments' (2025-2029) and 'Trustworthy Execution Environments for Secure Computing' (2024-2029). His research has been supported by competitive funding from KU Leuven and collaborative industry partnerships. As a member of the Council of the Faculty of Engineering Science, Dr. Van Bulck actively contributes to academic governance. He maintains the DistriNet research group's focus on practical security research with real-world impact, evidenced by numerous open-source contributions including the influential SGX-Step framework. His work bridges theoretical security principles with practical implementation challenges in modern computing systems.
Jennifer Paykin is a researcher affiliated with Intel and previously with Galois, Inc., actively contributing to programming languages and quantum computing since at least 2016. Her work bridges formal verification, quantum circuit design, and type theory, with notable papers on QWIRE, modal types, and higher-inductive quantum lambda calculus. Key affiliations: Intel (current), Galois, Inc. (past) Active in conference committees: PriSC , PLanQC , CoqPL , and TyDe Research interests span programming languages, quantum computing, formal verification, linear logic, and type systems. Her contributions include: Quantum circuit languages (QWIRE) Phantom type applications for quantum programs Modal types in quantum SDKs Formalizing quantum lambda calculus Secure compilation models Higher-inductive type frameworks Trends in publications show increasing focus on quantum software infrastructure (2016–2025), with recurring themes of type-driven quantum verification, circuit compilation, and logical foundations. Key collaborations include work on the SAW scripting language and flow equivalence models.
Jay Bosamiya is a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research (mapped to Researcher academic rank) and a PhD graduate from Carnegie Mellon University (advised by Bryan Parno). His research explores the intersection of Security , Systems , and Programming Languages , focusing on provably-safe software sandboxing and memory-safe execution of unsafe code. Education : PhD in Computer Science (CMU), BTech in Computer Science and Engineering (IIT Roorkee) Key Contributions : Lucet (high-concurrency sandboxing runtime), MSWasm (memory safety enforcement), and WebAssembly security frameworks His recent publications (2020-2023) emphasize compiler design , formal verification , and secure execution environments . Notable awards include four consecutive DEFCON CTF championships (2022-2025) as a member of MushMush (MMM) and Plaid Parliament of Pwning (PPP). Beyond research, he actively participates in open-source development, CTF competitions, and occasionally shares insights on JavaScript quirks, game development, and formal methods via social media.
Deming Chen is the Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, holding appointments in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department within the Grainger College of Engineering. He serves as a research professor in the Coordinated Science Laboratory and an affiliate professor in the Computer Science department. Additionally, he is the Director of the AMD-Xilinx Center of Excellence and the Co-Director of the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute. Dr. Chen earned his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1995, followed by his M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA in 2001 and 2005, respectively. After working as a software engineer during two periods (1995-1999 and 2001-2002), he joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2005 and became a full professor in 2015. His research spans reconfigurable computing, AI hardware acceleration, high-level synthesis, cloud computing, and hardware security. Dr. Chen's work has significant industry impact, with open-source solutions like Medusa being integrated into NVIDIA's TensorRT-LLM, improving LLM execution speed by 1.9-3.6x. His research group pursues system-level and high-level design automation, machine learning and cognitive computing, hybrid cloud systems, hardware/software co-design, and FPGA and GPU computing. His recent publications show a strong trend toward AI acceleration and large language model optimization, with projects like SnapKV and Medusa addressing critical challenges in LLM efficiency. His work consistently bridges theoretical innovation with practical implementation, as evidenced by numerous open-source projects that have been adopted by industry. IEEE Fellow (2019) Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering (2020-present) Google Faculty Award (2020) IBM Faculty Award (2014, 2015) NSF CAREER Award (2008) Ten Best Paper Awards TCFPGA Hall-of-Fame paper award DAC International System Design Contest wins (2017, 2019) Dr. Chen has served as PI/Co-PI on over 40 research grants from US Federal agencies and industry partners. He has led numerous open-source projects including FCUDA, DNNBuilder, SkyNet, ScaleHLS, and Medusa, many of which have been adopted by industry. As Editor-in-Chief of ACM TRETS (2019-2025), he increased the journal's impact factor by 3.8x. He actively mentors students and has been recognized as an excellent teacher by UIUC students in 2008 and 2017. His research group operates at the intersection of hardware and AI, with projects spanning from low-level hardware design to high-level AI applications. The AMD-Xilinx Center of Excellence and IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute provide substantial infrastructure for his team's research in hybrid cloud systems and AI acceleration.
Pinaki Mazumder is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan College of Engineering. He earned his PhD from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has 25+ years of teaching experience. His research develops CMOS VLSI systems, semiconductor memories, CAD tools for quantum devices, and bio-inspired computing architectures. Innovations include testable DRAM circuits and self-healing memory compilers used industrially. He has authored books on VLSI routing, neuromorphic computing, and genetic algorithms in circuit design. His work spans quantum MOS, spintronics, and plasmonic devices. Recognition: Fellow of IEEE Fellow of American Association for Advancement of Science Dr. Mazumder has secured research funding from NSF, DARPA, DoD, and industry partners. He developed the Quantum SPICE simulator for quantum tunneling circuits and teaches courses on VLSI design, parallel architectures, and nanoelectronics.
Ellen van Wolde is a Full Professor of Exegesis of the Old Testament/Source Texts of Judaism at Radboud University Nijmegen (since 2009) and Chair of the Department of Source Texts of Judaism and Christianity. Previously, she held a Full Professorship at the University of Tilburg (1992-2008) and visiting positions at the University of South Africa and the University of Sheffield. She is an Academy Board Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Education includes a PhD (cum laude) from the Catholic University of Nijmegen, an MA in Semiotics from the University of Bologna under Umberto Eco, and advanced studies in Biblical and Theological disciplines at institutions including the Pontificium Institutum Biblicum in Rome. Her research focuses on Hebrew Bible exegesis Cognitive linguistics applied to ancient texts Biblical Hebrew syntax and semantics Narratology and semiotics in religious literature Cultural and cognitive contextualization of biblical narratives Notable publications include her 2009 monograph Reframing Biblical Studies , which revolutionized methodological approaches, and groundbreaking work on the Hebrew verb bara in Genesis 1. Her research has sparked interdisciplinary dialogue and media attention, including a documentary in the KNAW series The Magic of Science . Awards include the Radboud Science Award (2010), NIAS Fellowship (2012), and knighthood in the Order of the Netherlands Lion (2011). She has secured grants for projects like The Jacob Case: Text and Cognition in Context and supervised numerous students in research programs rated among the best in Dutch academia. Her leadership has fostered collaborative conferences uniting biblical scholars and linguists.
James Long is a Professor of Accountancy at the Harbert College of Business, Auburn University, where he serves as Assistant Dean of Global Programs. His career spans academic leadership, research, and teaching excellence in accounting, financial wellness, and international business. Education: PhD in Accounting, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (2009) MAcc in Accounting, Auburn University (2002) BSBA in Accounting, Auburn University (2001) Dr. Long's research focuses on how task timing affects judgment, decision-making, and performance in accounting. His work intersects behavioral accounting, audit quality, and emerging technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence, particularly in educational contexts. His scholarly output includes publications in top-tier journals such as Accounting, Organizations & Society , Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory , and Journal of Accounting Education . Recent studies examine AI's role in accounting education, cryptocurrency accounting challenges, and interruptions in financial decision-making. Scientific Awards: Gerald and Emily Leischuck Endowed Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching Alumni Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Award Harbert College's Lowder and McCartney Teaching Awards School of Accountancy Outstanding Research Award (three-time recipient) National awards for educational research articles (four-time recipient) Dr. Long has also contributed to professional practice, including a Fulbright Scholar stint in Hungary (2017), and prior industry roles as a Staff Auditor and Internal Audit Manager. He holds certifications in CIA, CMA, CPA, ABV, and CGMA, and is active in major accounting associations.
Ana Cavalcanti is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of York, UK. Her research focuses on formal methods for safety critical systems, particularly in robotics and real-time software. She leads the SER research group and has secured major funding from EPSRC and the European Commission. Education 1987 - BSc in Computer Science, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil 1990 - MSc in Computer Science, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil 1997 - DPhil in Computer Science, Oxford University Her work bridges formal verification, concurrency, and object-orientation, with recent projects like RoboSapiens and DOMINOS addressing trustworthy autonomous systems. She has published extensively on robotic controller verification, adaptive architectures, and ethical requirements for AI. Selected scientific accolades include the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award and a Royal Society Industry Fellowship. She has held academic positions at Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (1997-2002) and the University of Kent (2002-2004) before joining York in 2004.
Sukyoung Ryu is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at KAIST's College of Computing, South Korea. Her research centers on programming languages and program analysis, with significant contributions to WebAssembly, JavaScript semantics, and language specification. She leads the Programming Languages Research Group (PLRG) at KAIST. Her research spans multiple critical areas including executable specification engineering, static analysis techniques, and language interoperability. Recent work focuses on WebAssembly conformance testing, C-to-Rust translation, and bridging real-world implementations with formal semantics. Her group develops practical tools like SpecTec for mechanized language specifications and JISET for JavaScript semantics extraction. Analysis of her 15 most recent publications reveals strong trends in executable specifications (7 papers), WebAssembly tooling (5 papers), and language translation (4 papers). Key methodological approaches include record-replay debugging, filtered-simulation for binary lifting, and algebraic data type transformations for memory safety. Ryu actively contributes to the programming languages community through leadership roles including Steering Committee Chair for APLAS, Program Co-Chair for SPLASH/OOPSLA, and committee positions at POPL, PLDI, and ICFP. She frequently organizes workshops on real-world language specification (RPLS) and presents keynotes on programming language research for social good. Her mentoring activities include co-chairing New Faculty Symposia and participating in RTFM panels on faculty mentoring. She advises students through KAIST's programs and supervises research in the PLRG lab, which focuses on building practical language tools with formal foundations. Current projects emphasize WebAssembly standardization, secure language interoperability, and specification-based testing frameworks.
Alastair Reid is a researcher at Intel (2021–present) focusing on formal instruction set architecture (ISA) specifications and model checking processor pipelines. His career spans roles at Google Research (2019–2021) developing Rust verification tools, Arm Ltd (2004–2019) working on formal ISA specifications and vectorizing compilers, University of Utah (1998–2004) on component-based operating systems, Yale University (1994–1998) contributing to Haskell functional reactive programming, and University of Glasgow (1988–1994) in formal specification and verification. Ph.D. in Defining interfaces between hardware and software: Quality and performance , Glasgow University M.Sc. in A precise semantics for Ultraloose Specifications , Glasgow University B.Sc., University of Strathclyde His research interests include formal verification, security analysis, functional programming languages (particularly Haskell and Rust), and computer architecture. He has contributed to the development of machine-readable ISA specifications for ARM, RISC-V, and Intel architectures, and worked on symbolic execution tools like KLEE for Rust verification. Key publications include work on RISC-V specification improvements (2024), formal methods for persistent programming (2023), PLARCH workshop contributions on ISA specification (2023), and foundational papers on ARM processor verification with ISA-Formal (2016). His technical blog posts cover topics in symbolic execution, SMT solvers, and practical verification challenges. Contributions to conferences include committee roles in PLDI (2024), PriSC (2024), and workshop organization in formal methods and programming language design.
Diego Garbervetsky is an Associate Professor at the Computer Science Department, School of Sciences, University of Buenos Aires, and a Researcher at ICC/CONICET. He also serves as Director of the Institute of Research in Computer Sciences (ICC). His academic career spans software engineering, programming languages, and formal methods with a focus on program analysis and verification. His research interests include: Static and dynamic program analysis Reverse engineering and compiler optimizations Program understanding and validation Testing and verification of programs featuring rich protocols Automatic symbolic resource analysis (gas consumption, dynamic memory, energy, etc.) Garbervetsky's recent work focuses on smart contract analysis and verification, particularly for Solidity on Ethereum blockchain. His research bridges theoretical program analysis with practical applications in security-critical domains. He has developed several tools including Contractor for behavior validation, JConsume2 for heap memory analysis, and BudaPest for automated software verification. His scientific contributions have been presented at top-tier conferences including ICSE, FSE, ISSTA, and PLDI. Garbervetsky has served on numerous program committees for major software engineering conferences and has advised multiple PhD and undergraduate students through their research.
Arthur Azevedo de Amorim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology's College of Computing. His research focuses on making software more secure and reliable using techniques based on formal verification, programming languages, and type systems. Previously, he held postdoctoral positions at Boston University and Carnegie Mellon University after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania under Benjamin Pierce and co-advised by Cătălin Hrițcu. His educational background includes undergraduate studies in computer science and engineering at Unicamp and Polytechnique. He is also one of the authors of Software Foundations, an introductory textbook to the Coq proof assistant, and maintains an active blog about Coq. Dr. de Amorim's research spans several critical areas in programming languages and security. His work on cryptographic protocols leverages recent advances in program verification (particularly separation logic) to verify cryptographic protocols. His research on compartmentalization analyzes formal guarantees of techniques for limiting the scope of vulnerabilities in low-level languages like C and C++. These research areas reflect his commitment to bridging theoretical foundations with practical security applications. His recent publications demonstrate strong activity across multiple top-tier conferences including POPL, PLDI, CCS, and ICALP, with research spanning formal verification, secure compilation, differential privacy, and programming language theory. His work consistently combines theoretical rigor with practical applications in security and reliability. Dr. de Amorim has served on numerous program committees for major programming languages conferences including POPL, PLDI, ICFP, and CoqPL, demonstrating his active engagement with the research community. He has also contributed to important educational resources through his work on Software Foundations. He currently advises several graduate students at RIT working on various aspects of programming languages and security. His lab develops multiple open-source software projects including Cryptis (for verifying cryptographic protocols), Deriving (a Coq library for automating class instances), and Extructures (a Coq library of finite data structures).
James Cheney is a Personal Chair of Programming Languages and Systems at the University of Edinburgh, working in the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science within the School of Informatics. He leads the Principles of Provenance research group and has been a Turing Fellow from 2018 to 2023. His educational background includes a PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University (2004), an MS in Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University (1998), and a BS in Computer Science and Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University (1998). Cheney's research focuses on the intersection of databases and programming languages, with particular emphasis on data provenance. His work spans several key areas: Databases and data provenance Programming languages and compilers Generic programming Logic and automated theorem proving Compression and information theory XML and related technologies His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on language-integrated query systems, type systems for programming languages, and formal approaches to data provenance. These works often bridge theoretical foundations with practical applications in database systems and programming language design. Cheney has received several notable awards and recognitions: Royal Society University Research Fellowship (2008-2016) Turing Fellow (2018-2023) ERC Consolidator Grant for the Skye project (2016-2021) Google Research Award for Language-integrated provenance As an advisor, Cheney has supervised numerous PhD students and postdoctoral researchers who have gone on to positions at institutions including New York University, LSE, University of Southampton, Meta, and others. His research has been supported by various grants from DARPA, EPSRC, AFOSR, EU FP7, and industry partners including Google, Microsoft Research, and Huawei. Cheney leads the Principles of Provenance group, which conducts fundamental research on data provenance and its applications in security, data curation, and scientific computing. The group has worked on projects including Skye (a programming language for scientific data curation), ADAPT (a DARPA-funded project on advanced persistent threat prevention), and language-integrated provenance systems.
