Dong Jin Song

Dong Jin Song is a full Professor at the National University of Singapore's School of Computing, Department of Computer Science. He joined NUS in 1998 and was promoted to Professor in 2016 after serving as Associate Professor (2005) and Assistant Professor. He has held various leadership roles including Deputy Head of CS Department (2023-2024), NUS Senate Member (2020-current), and Assistant Dean (Graduate Office, SoC).

• PhD, University of Queensland, Australia (1993-1995)
• BInfTech with First Class Honours, University of Queensland, Australia (1989-1992) - Major in Software Engineering

Professor Dong's research spans formal methods, safety and security systems, probabilistic reasoning, sports analytics, and trusted machine learning. He is best known for co-founding the PAT verification system which has attracted thousands of registered users from over 150 countries and won the 20-year ICFEM Most Influential System Award in 2018. He also co-founded 'Silas: Trusted Machine Learning' and the Dependable Intelligence company. His work bridges formal verification with practical applications in security, AI, and even sports analytics where he developed Markov Decision Process models for tennis strategy analysis.

His recent publications show a strong trend toward integrating formal methods with modern AI systems, particularly focusing on trustworthy AI, LLM verification, and security applications. The research spans multiple high-impact venues including ICML, NeurIPS, IEEE Transactions, and top security conferences like USENIX Security, reflecting his interdisciplinary approach that combines formal verification with machine learning, security, and practical applications.

Professor Dong has received numerous honors including the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award for ICSE 2020, the 20-Year ICFEM Most Influential System Award (2018), and being named a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers Australia (2018). His awards reflect both theoretical contributions to formal methods and practical impact on software engineering.

• ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award for ICSE 2020
• NUS Research Recognition Award (2020)
• Fellow of Institute of Engineers Australia (2018)
• 20-Year ICFEM Most Influential System Award (2018)
• Best Paper Award at ICECCS (2015 and 2012)

Professor Dong has successfully supervised 33 PhD students, many of whom have become tenured faculty members at leading universities worldwide including The University of Auckland, Aston University, Singapore Management University, and Monash University. His students have gone on to successful careers in both academia and industry at organizations like Google, Apple, HP Research Lab, and IBM. He has served on the editorial boards of prestigious journals including ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology and has been active in numerous conference organizing committees.

Through his research group and commercial ventures (Dependable Intelligence), Professor Dong has built a strong team focused on formal verification, trusted AI systems, and practical applications of model checking. His work has evolved from foundational formal methods research to cutting-edge applications in AI safety and security, maintaining a consistent thread of rigorous verification throughout his career.