Tevfik Bultan

Tevfik Bultan is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he leads the Verification Laboratory (VLab). He has been actively teaching undergraduate and graduate courses including CS 160 (Translation of Programming Languages), CS 267 (Automated Verification), and CS 272 (Software Engineering), along with specialized seminars on topics like Neural Network Verification and Quantitative Verification.

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of Maryland, College Park (1998)
• M.S. in Computer Engineering and Information Science, Bilkent University (1992)
• B.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Middle East Technical University

Professor Bultan's research focuses on software verification, static analysis, model checking, and security, with particular emphasis on quantitative information flow, side channel analysis, and string analysis. His work bridges theoretical foundations with practical applications in web software, service-oriented computing, and concurrency. He has pioneered techniques for detecting bugs in identity and access management policies and quantifying information leakages in crypto libraries, which earned him Amazon Research Awards in 2017 and 2023.

His recent publications and student dissertations reveal a strong trend toward quantitative approaches to security analysis, with increasing focus on automated techniques for detecting and mitigating side channels in various contexts including network communications, cryptographic libraries, and access control systems. His work combines formal methods with practical security applications, often developing novel constraint solving and model counting techniques.

• Amazon Research Award (2017): Automatically Detecting Bugs in Identity and Access Management Policies
• Amazon Research Award (2023): Detecting and Quantifying Information Leakages in Crypto Libraries

Professor Bultan has advised numerous PhD students who have gone on to academic positions at institutions like Stevens Institute of Technology, Harvey Mudd College, and King Saud University, as well as industry positions at companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Intel. His laboratory, the Verification Laboratory, has received funding from various sources to support research in software verification and security analysis. The lab focuses on developing practical verification techniques that can be applied to real-world software systems.