Michael Carbin is the Jamieson Career Development Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and leads the MIT Programming Systems Group. His research focuses on programming systems that address system uncertainty to enhance performance, energy efficiency, and resilience, particularly in environments involving neural networks , approximate computing , and unreliable hardware . His work spans probabilistic programming , quantum computing , and machine learning systems . Articles highlight contributions in pruning neural networks , quantum data structures , and compiler optimization , reflecting trends in deep learning , formal verification , and language-driven systems . Scientific Awards : MIT Frank E. Perkins Award (2020) Sloan Research Fellowship (2020) Facebook Research Award (2019) NSF CAREER Award (2018) Best Paper Awards at OOPSLA (2013, 2014) He has advised numerous graduate students and postdocs including Eric Atkinson, Cambridge Yang, and Charles Yuan, and served on program committees for conferences like POPL, OOPSLA, and ICLR. His group collaborates with institutions such as MIT CSAIL and explores applications in quantum algorithms and probabilistic inference .
Nate Foster is a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University and currently serves as the Associate Dean for Research in the Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. He is also a Visiting Researcher at Jane Street and served as a Visiting Professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne during the 2023-24 academic year. His research uses ideas from programming languages to solve problems in networking, databases, and security. BA in Computer Science, Williams College (2001) MPhil in History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge (2008, all work completed in 2003) PhD in Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania (2009) Foster's research focuses on developing languages and tools that make it easy for programmers to build secure and reliable systems. His current work centers on the design and implementation of languages and tools for programmable networks, particularly using the P4 language. His past work includes bidirectional languages (also known as 'lenses'), database query languages, data provenance, type systems, mechanized proof, and formal semantics. His research group at Cornell has made significant contributions to network verification, software-defined networking, and formal foundations for programmable data planes. Analysis of Foster's recent publications reveals a strong focus on network verification and programming language foundations for networking. His work consistently applies formal methods to practical networking problems, with a particular emphasis on the NetKAT and P4 languages. Over the past five years, his research has evolved toward more complex network verification techniques, including infinite state verification, active learning of network models, and dependently-typed approaches to network programming. His work bridges theoretical computer science with practical networking systems, making formal methods accessible to network engineers. ACM Fellow (2025) ACM SIGPLAN Robin Milner Award (2023) ACM SIGCOMM Rising Star Award (2018) NSF CAREER Award (2013) Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2012) Multiple distinguished paper awards across top conferences including POPL, PLDI, and SIGCOMM Foster has advised numerous PhD and Master's students who have gone on to prominent positions in both industry and academia, with many continuing work in programming languages and networking. He has led multiple significant research grants including an NSF CAREER Award and has been involved in the P4 Language Consortium, serving as Chair of the P4 Language Governing Board. His work has been supported by various organizations including NSF, DARPA, and industry partners like Intel and Jane Street. Foster is also active in the programming languages research community, serving on numerous program committees and as Vice Chair of DARPA's Information Science and Technology (ISAT) study group. Foster leads a vibrant research group at Cornell focused on programming languages for networks, with collaborators from academia and industry. His group has developed several influential tools and frameworks including NetKAT, Petr4, and KATch. They maintain strong connections with the P4 community and work closely with industry partners to ensure their research has practical impact on real-world networking systems.
Nadia Polikarpova is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego . She earned her PhD from ETH Zurich in 2014 under Bertrand Meyer , followed by postdoctoral research at MIT CSAIL with Armando Solar-Lezama . Her academic contributions have been recognized with prestigious awards including the 2020 Sloan Fellowship , 2020 Intel Rising Stars Award , and 2020 NSF CAREER Award . Polikarpova's research focuses on program synthesis , program verification , and type systems . She leads the Programming Systems group at UCSD and contributes to the IFIP Working Group 2.8 on Functional Programming since 2022. Her work spans foundational research and practical tools, including projects like Synquid , SuSLik , and Laurel that combine formal methods with machine learning for code generation. Her recent publications in venues like OOPSLA , NeurIPS , and ICFP reveal trends in AI-assisted programming , live programming environments , and formal verification . She has advised numerous PhD and Master’s students including Shraddha Barke , Zheng Guo , and Tristan Knoth , many of whom have moved to prominent academic and industry positions. Notable artifacts from her lab include tools like ColDeco for spreadsheet inspection and Superfusion for eliminating intermediate data structures. 2020 : Sloan Fellow 2020 : Intel Rising Stars Award 2020 : NSF CAREER Award 2021 : Distinguished Paper at POPL 2023 : Distinguished Artifact at PLDI 2023 : Distinguished Paper at OOPSLA Polikarpova actively contributes to academic service, serving on program committees for PLDI , POPL , and OOPSLA , and co-chairing the OOPSLA Review Committee in 2023. She has delivered keynotes at APLAS'20 and PLDI'24 , emphasizing the integration of large language models with formal methods.
Marco Platzner is a Professor for Computer Engineering at Paderborn University , Germany. He serves as the Dean of Research for the Faculty of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Mathematics and heads the Department of Computer Science. Previously, he held research positions at ETH Zurich, Stanford University, GMD (now Fraunhofer IAIS), and Graz University of Technology. Education: Diploma and PhD in Telematics (Graz University of Technology, 1991 and 1996), Habilitation in Hardware-Software Co-Design (ETH Zurich, 2002) Research Interests focus on reconfigurable computing, approximate computing, self-* computing, and embedded systems. His work addresses hardware security, FPGA design, and sustainable AI in data centers. Current projects include energy-efficient AI through deep neural network approximation for FPGAs (EKI-App) and lifecycle sustainability of socio-technical systems (SAIL). Publication Trends show expertise in FPGA security, approximate circuit synthesis, robotics, and hardware acceleration. Collaborations span robotics (ROS 2 integration), AI (transformer optimization), and cybersecurity (Trojan detection). Scientific Awards: ACM SIGDA Hall of Fame (2020) Significant Paper Award (FPL 2015) Best Paper Awards at IEEE ISVLSI (2024), ARC (2018), IEEE ReConFig (2015), and others Weierstraß Prize for Teaching (2008) Leadership Roles include membership in the board of Paderborn Center for Parallel Computing (PC2) and the Jenny Aloni Centre for Early Career Researchers. He has contributed to EU FP7 FET project EPiCS and German priority programs on embedded systems and organic computing.
Assia Mahboubi is a tenured researcher ( directrice de recherche ) at INRIA in the Gallinette team, Nantes, France, and an endowed professor in the Algebra and Number Theory section of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. Her work bridges theoretical computer science and formal mathematics, with significant contributions to proof assistants and formal verification. Her research focuses on the foundations and formalization of mathematics in type theory, particularly on the automated verification of mathematical proofs. She explores the interplay between computer algebra and formal proofs, and is a key contributor to the Rocq prover (formerly Coq) and the Mathematical Components libraries. Her work often examines how familiar mathematical objects can be optimally represented for computer-aided proof checking. Recent publications show a strong trend toward categorical reasoning, diagram chasing, and continuity properties in constructive type theory, with increasing focus on practical applications of formal methods in computational mathematics. Her work demonstrates the maturation of formal verification techniques from theoretical foundations to practical tools for mathematical research. ERC Consolidator grant for the FRESCO (Fast and Reliable Symbolic Computation) project Mahboubi actively supervises doctoral students including Vojtěch Štěpančík, Tomás Vallejos Parada, and Alain Chavarri Villarello. She has received significant research funding through her ERC Consolidator grant for the FRESCO project, which aims to develop fast and reliable symbolic computation techniques. She is deeply involved in the international research community, serving on program committees for major conferences including POPL, CPP, and ICFP. She leads research in the Gallinette team at INRIA, which focuses on the intersection of proof assistants, programming languages, and formal mathematics. Her work has helped establish formal verification as a practical tool for mathematical research, moving beyond theoretical foundations to real applications in computational mathematics.
Prof. Dr. Barbara Kraus is the Chair of Quantum Algorithms and Applications at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), affiliated with the TUM School of Natural Sciences. She previously held academic positions at the University of Innsbruck, where she founded her research group in 2010. Education : Physics and Mathematics at the University of Innsbruck; Post-doctoral work at MPI for Quantum Optics and University of Geneva. Her research focuses on foundational problems in quantum information theory, particularly entanglement in multipartite systems, quantum simulation, and verification of quantum processors. She develops theoretical tools for quantum many-body systems and explores applications in quantum computing, emphasizing error characterization and experimental validation. Recent publications highlight advancements in Hamiltonian learning, symmetry-resolved entanglement detection, and multipartite state transformations. Her work bridges theoretical quantum physics with practical implementations, including Rydberg platforms and quantum metrology. Key Awards : START Prize (2010), Ignaz L. Lieben Award (2013), Boltzmann Prize (2011), Südtiroler Sparkasse Research Prize (2019). She supervises doctoral students and postdocs in quantum information theory, with a focus on stabilizer states, quantum networks, and entanglement measures. Her courses at TUM include Quantum Information , Quantum Algorithms , and workshops on entanglement manipulation.
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Steinhorst is an Associate Professor (W3-level with tenure) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) within the Embedded Systems and Internet of Things group at the TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology . His research focuses on advancing the security, predictability, reliability, and interoperability of smart connected and autonomous systems, particularly for applications in Internet of Things (IoT) , Industry 4.0 , and automotive systems . PhD in Computer Science (2011) from Goethe University Frankfurt Postdoctoral roles at TUMCREATE Singapore (2011-2016) and Aarhus University (2016) Joined TUM in 2016 as Rudolf Moessbauer Tenure Track Professor His research areas include decentralized embedded systems, hardware/software co-design, modeling and verification of cyber-physical systems, security protocols for automotive networks, and time-sensitive networking (TSN) for industrial applications. Recent work explores blockchain-based data sovereignty, zero-knowledge proofs for vehicle authentication, and resilient architectures for autonomous systems. Key scientific contributions include the 2019 ACM TODAES Best Paper Award and pioneering work on CyberSecDome , LeapChain , and Simutack frameworks. He serves on editorial boards and conference committees, including co-organizing the Autonomous Systems Design initiative at DATE. His teaching portfolio spans lectures on System Design for IoT , Software Architecture for Distributed Systems , and IoT Security across multiple semesters. He also leads advanced seminars on embedded systems and IoT.
Prof. Bryan Ford leads the Decentralized/Distributed Systems (DEDIS) lab at EPFL. He focuses on secure decentralized systems, including blockchain technology, privacy, and systems security. He earned his Ph.D. from MIT and held faculty positions at Yale University and EPFL. His work spans distributed consensus protocols, peer-to-peer networking, and privacy-preserving systems. Key projects include QuePaxa (timeout-free consensus), UIA (global connectivity for mobile devices), and MedCo (secure healthcare data sharing). He advises numerous PhD students and contributes to open-source projects like Bitcoin collective signing and privacy networks like Riffle. Education: Ph.D., MIT; Postdoctoral work at Yale Research interests include blockchain scalability, consensus algorithms, and cryptographic privacy. His lab develops systems like TRIP for coercion-resistant voting and F3B to mitigate blockchain front-running. His work on NAT traversal and peer-to-peer protocols (e.g., STUN/ICE) remains foundational in network architecture. He emphasizes practical, auditable security solutions such as CertiKOS and atomic cross-chain transactions (Atom). Notable contributions: CoSi (collective signing), OmniLedger (sharded blockchain), and privacy-preserving protocols like PURBs (Protected Unsealable Recursive Boxes). His lab collaborates with Swiss Post to audit e-voting systems and designs democratic cryptocurrencies like PoPCoin.
Max Planck Institute for Security and PrivacyGermany
Yangruibo Ding is an incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and currently serves as a Postdoctoral Scientist at AWS Agentic AI. He has held significant research positions at Google DeepMind, Amazon AWS AI Labs, and IBM Research, establishing himself as a leading researcher in software engineering with a focus on large language models for code. His research focuses on developing large language models (LLMs) and agentic systems for software engineering. He specializes in training LLMs with advanced symbolic reasoning capabilities for debugging, testing, program analysis, and verification. His work aims to build efficient, collaborative agentic systems for complex software development and maintenance tasks, with particular emphasis on code generation, vulnerability detection, and execution-aware pre-training techniques. Dr. Ding's publication record reveals a strong trajectory toward enhancing code intelligence through comprehensive semantics reasoning and self-refinement approaches. His research spans multiple dimensions of software engineering including code completion, vulnerability detection, model evaluation, and cross-file context understanding, with applications across various programming languages and development environments. Dr. Ding has received numerous prestigious awards recognizing his contributions to the field: IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Award (2022-2024) ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award (2023) IEEE TSE Best Paper Award Runner-up (2022) Ph.D. Service Award, Columbia CS (2025) NSF Student Travel Award for ESEC/FSE'23 (2023) ACM SIGSOFT CAPS Travel Grant (2023) NSF Travel Award for ICSE'22 (2022) As he establishes his research group at UCLA, Dr. Ding is actively seeking students with strong coding skills and experience in large language models, program analysis, verification, or security. He serves on program committees for major conferences including ICSE (2026), ASE (2024, 2025), and ESEC/FSE Artifacts Track (2023), and regularly reviews for top-tier conferences and journals in AI and software engineering. His research is conducted through collaborations with leading industry teams including AWS Agentic AI, Google DeepMind's Learning4Code team, and IBM Research's AI for Code team, creating a robust network of industry-academia partnerships that drive innovation in software engineering research.
Cristian Cadar is a Professor in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London, leading the Software Reliability Group . His research focuses on improving software reliability and security through practical techniques in software engineering, computer systems, and program analysis. Education: Ph.D. in Computer Science, Stanford University M.Eng. in Computer Science, MIT B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics, MIT His research interests center on software engineering and software security , particularly symbolic execution , dynamic symbolic execution (DSE) , and multi-version execution . Current work explores techniques for scalability, constraint solving, and runtime security in software systems. Key trends in his recent articles include optimizing symbolic execution for testing, addressing path explosion in constraint-based test generation, and advancing multi-version execution for dynamic software updates. His publications also cover program analysis , automated testing , and formal methods for software reliability. Awarded prestigious honors such as the Humboldt Research Award (2024) , ERC Consolidator Grant (2018) , and IEEE New Directions Award (2022) . Other accolades include the BCS Roger Needham Award (2019) and SIGOPS Hall of Fame (2018) . Cadar supervises PhD and postdoctoral researchers in software reliability and security. His group has secured grants from the ERC and EPSRC , including a Consolidator Grant (2018) and Early-Career Fellowship (2013) . He actively contributes to conference organizing committees and editorial boards. The Software Reliability Group at Imperial College, led by Cadar, specializes in techniques like KLEE and EXE for automated testing. Their work has been adopted by industry partners such as Fujitsu, IBM, and Microsoft, particularly in runtime security tools like WIT .
Björn Brandenburg is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (MPI-SWS) in Kaiserslautern, Germany. His work focuses on real-time systems, scheduling algorithms, and operating system design, with a particular emphasis on predictable resource allocation and performance guarantees in multiprocessor and cyber-physical environments. His research interests include real-time response-time analysis (e.g., PROSA ), locking protocols for multiprocessor systems, side-channel mitigation in cloud environments, and the verification of real-time scheduling policies. He has contributed to foundational studies on deadline failure probabilities, self-suspending tasks, and predictable real-time Linux implementations. Scientific awards include recognition for outstanding papers on TimerShield (2017) Offline Equivalence (2017) . His work intersects with practical systems like LITMUSRT and ROS 2, aiming to bridge theoretical guarantees with real-world applications in safety-critical and distributed real-time systems.
Max Planck Institute for Innovation and CompetitionGermany
Lisa Soder serves as Senior Policy Researcher and Acting Head of Technical AI Governance at Interface, a leading European tech policy think tank, and is an incoming Visiting Research Fellow at Stanford University's Intelligent Systems Laboratory within the School of Engineering. She holds a Master's degree from the London School of Economics focusing on comparative transatlantic approaches to technology regulation and competition law, and brings prior experience from the Centre for the Governance of AI, Boston Consulting Group, and global health NGO work in Ethiopia. Her research centers on establishing AI accountability infrastructures with particular emphasis on developing third-party auditing ecosystems and bridging technical and regulatory aspects of AI governance. She has developed a taxonomy for Technical AI Governance organized along technical targets (Data, Compute, Algorithms and Models, Deployment) and governance capacities (Assessment, Access, Verification, Security, Operationalization, Ecosystem Monitoring). Her work examines open problems across these dimensions, highlighting the critical need for technical tools to support effective AI governance. Analysis of her publications reveals a strong focus on practical implementation challenges in AI regulation, particularly regarding the EU AI Act's provisions for general-purpose AI systems. Her research consistently addresses the gap between policy aspirations and technical capabilities, with particular attention to verification mechanisms, risk assessment frameworks, and the development of technical infrastructure necessary for oversight. She advocates for closer collaboration between technical experts and policymakers to ensure governance mechanisms are both feasible and effective. Lisa has been actively engaged in high-level policy discussions, participating in events such as the AI Action Summit in Paris, Sino-German Track 2 Dialogues on AI governance, and expert briefings on frontier AI systems. Her upcoming visiting research fellowship at Stanford University represents a formal academic affiliation that complements her policy-focused work at Interface.
Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for InformaticsGermany
Jishen Zhao is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego (Jacobs School of Engineering). His research focuses on computer architecture, non-volatile memory systems, and deep learning acceleration. Dr. Zhao has published extensively in top venues including ISCA, MICRO, ASPLOS, and IEEE Transactions. He collaborates with researchers at UCSD and beyond to advance systems for emerging applications in AI and autonomous vehicles. Dr. Zhao's primary research areas include persistent memory systems, hardware/software co-design for deep learning, and safety-critical computing. He develops techniques for crash consistency, memory disaggregation, and efficient neural network deployment. His work on autonomous vehicles addresses scenario generation and perception-aware system design. Recent projects explore LLM applications for software engineering and hardware verification. Analysis of Dr. Zhao's 2024-2025 publications reveals a strong shift toward AI-integrated systems research. He applies large language models to tasks like RTL verification and software issue localization while continuing to innovate in memory systems for serverless computing. There is growing emphasis on safety-critical systems for autonomous vehicles and energy-efficient neural network training using novel hardware architectures. Information about Dr. Zhao's scientific awards, advising activities, grants, and laboratory facilities was not available in the provided documentation.
Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of BonnGermany
Floris van Doorn is a Professor at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Bonn where he leads the Formalized Mathematics group. His research focuses on making it viable to formalize research mathematics in proof assistants that can check the correctness of such proofs. He primarily works with the Lean Theorem Prover and is a maintainer of its mathematical library (mathlib). University of Bonn: Professor (2023-present) University of Paris-Saclay: Postdoc with Patrick Massot (2021-2023) University of Pittsburgh: Postdoc with Tom Hales (2018-2021) Carnegie Mellon University: PhD under Jeremy Avigad and Steve Awodey (2013-2018) Van Doorn's research interests center on formalized mathematics, tools and automation for formalization, and homotopy type theory. He has made significant contributions to several major formalization projects including the Carleson project (proving Carleson's theorem), the sphere eversion project (formalizing Gromov's h-principle), the Flypitch project (formalizing the independence of the continuum hypothesis), and the Spectral sequences project. His work demonstrates that proof assistants can handle complex areas of mathematics beyond algebra, including differential topology and analysis. His recent publications show a consistent focus on advancing formalized mathematics, with his most recent work formalizing the Gagliardo-Nirenberg-Sobolev inequality and continuing the Carleson project. His publications span theoretical foundations of type theory, practical applications of formalization, and educational resources for learning proof assistants. Skolem award (2025) for the paper 'The Lean Theorem Prover (System Description)' Van Doorn actively mentors students and collaborators, with Maria, Michael, and Arend recently joining his formalization group in Bonn. He has taught various courses on formalized mathematics and proof assistants at the University of Bonn, University of Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University. His educational efforts include developing learning resources such as the Natural Number Game and the online book 'Mathematics in Lean.' He also maintains an active presence in the Lean community through the Formalized Mathematics group and collaborative projects like the Carleson project, which invites participation from those familiar with Lean.
Dongwoo Kim is a researcher affiliated with Hanyang University, ERICA Campus (Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering) and has previously collaborated with institutions like POSTECH , Chungnam National University , and Microsoft . His work spans interdisciplinary domains in Computer Science and Engineering . Hanyang University, ERICA Campus - Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering POSTECH - Power Analog Electronics & Semiconductor Devices Lab Microsoft Chungnam National University Kim's research focuses on formal verification of automotive control software, deep learning applications in environmental monitoring, 3D modeling for indoor positioning, and machine learning for signal processing. His recent publications highlight advancements in graph neural networks (GNNs), including analyzing oversmoothing and gradient dynamics, as well as developing geometric vision-language models with domain-agnostic encoders. His 15 most recent articles (2023-2025) address topics like: Optimizing hybrid electric vehicle engine performance 3D modeling for indoor localization GNN training stability UAV-based environmental monitoring Algorithm difficulty prediction for programming problems Millimeter-wave antenna design Kim collaborates with researchers in software engineering , signal processing , and environmental science domains. His work intersects formal methods , applied machine learning , and embedded systems research.
