Alexandra Silva

Alexandra Silva is a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University with prior affiliations as a Royal Society Wolfson Fellow and Professor of Algebra, Semantics, and Computation at University College London. She leads a research group focusing on the modular development of specification languages and algorithms for models of computation, emphasizing coalgebra as a unifying mathematical framework.

Research Interests

Her work spans foundational and applied areas in theoretical computer science, including:

• Coalgebraic methods for formal verification
• Automata theory and learning algorithms
• Probabilistic programming and semantics
• Programming language design (e.g., NetKAT, Kleene Algebra with Tests)
• Concurrency theory and distributed systems
• Algebraic structures in computation

Recent publications address network verification (StacKAT), symbolic automata learning, probabilistic regular expressions, and outcome logic for correctness/incorrectness reasoning. She is actively involved in organizing academic events like OPLSS 2025 and co-authoring foundational works in Formal Aspects of Computing and Theoretical Computer Science.

Scientific Awards

• Distinguished Paper Award (ACM SIGPLAN POPL, 2020)
• Best Paper Award (RTA, 2015)

She teaches courses on Kleene Algebra with Tests (KAT) and verification at summer schools like Marktoberdorf 2025, and her research includes collaborations on probabilistic network verification (ProbNV) and stochastic system modeling.