Jenna DiVincenzo

Jenna DiVincenzo is an Assistant Professor in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University, where she conducts research at the intersection of programming languages, software engineering, and formal methods. Her work focuses on making verification techniques more usable and scalable for developers.

Dr. DiVincenzo earned her PhD in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in December 2023, where she was co-advised by Dr. Jonathan Aldrich and Dr. Joshua Sunshine. Her dissertation focused on gradual verification technology for recursive heap data structures. She also holds a BS in Mathematics and Computer Science from Youngstown State University.

Her primary research area is gradual verification, which seamlessly combines static (compile time) and dynamic (run time) verification techniques to support incremental specification and verification of code. She takes a holistic approach to research, exploring new techniques through mathematical formalizations, user studies, and tool development. Her current projects include gradual verification for Rust, proof synthesis and repair for gradual verifiers, educational impact of gradual verification, evaluating gradual verifiers' soundness, and gradual program analysis.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a strong focus on practical verification techniques that balance developer productivity with software assurance. Her work consistently bridges theoretical foundations with practical implementation, often incorporating empirical evaluation through user studies and performance measurements. She has made significant contributions to understanding how to make verification more incremental and accessible to developers.

• Google PhD Fellow
• NSF GRFP Fellow
• 2022 Rising Star in EECS

Dr. DiVincenzo is actively mentoring PhD students in her research group, with recent student achievements including Craig Liu winning first place in the undergraduate category of the SPLASH'24 SRC and Conrad Zimmerman receiving an NSF GRFP award. She previously interned at IBM Research, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and contributed to language designs for Penrose and Obsidian. Her research has been supported by various grants, though specific current grants aren't detailed in the provided text.

Her lab focuses on building practical verification tools, with projects including Gradual C0 (a gradual verifier for recursive heap data structures) and developing gradual verification techniques for Rust. She collaborates with researchers across institutions, including Dr. Lin Tan at Purdue on LLM applications for verification.