Nikolaos S. Papaspyrou is a Professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), affiliated with the Software Engineering Laboratory and the Division of Computer Science. His research focuses on programming languages, compilers, formal verification, and concurrency. Since October 2021, he has been on leave from NTUA while working as a Software Engineer at Google's V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine team. Previously, he served as Director of the Division of Computer Science (2017–2019) and held a sabbatical at Google's Munich compiler group (2015–2016). His academic contributions include pioneering work on Erlang/OTP scalability, concolic testing for functional languages, and static analysis techniques. He has authored numerous publications in top venues like ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems and IEEE conferences. Papaspyrou has supervised over 50 diploma students and multiple PhD candidates, contributing to the education of future researchers and engineers. He actively participates in programming competitions, coaching Greek Olympiad teams, and volunteers in the Hellenic Informatics Society. He teaches advanced courses on programming languages, compilers, and software engineering at NTUA, emphasizing practical applications of theoretical concepts. His educational philosophy integrates problem-solving through programming, as highlighted in his FedCSIS 2013 paper on teaching methodologies.
Michael Eichberg is a Professor at Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, where his work centers on software engineering, static analysis, programming languages, and secure software development tools. He is the principal architect of the OPAL framework for Java bytecode analysis and has an extensive publication record spanning PLDI, ICSE, ESEC/FSE, ISSTA, ASE, FSE, SOAP, and other premier venues. Research Interests: Static program analysis and its scalability to real-world code bases Software security, particularly cryptographic API misuse and Android app repackaging detection Concurrent and parallel programming models, including deterministic concurrency in Scala Software architecture conformance, drift and erosion detection, and rule reuse Development of open extensible tools and frameworks (OPAL, LectureDoc, QScope, Sextant, XIRC, IRC) Publication Trends: His recent work (2015-2022) demonstrates a strong focus on empirical evaluation of static analysis techniques, modular composition of analyses, and security-related program understanding. Key themes include unsoundness in call graph construction, purity and immutability analyses, parallelization of static analyses, and large-scale studies of cryptographic API misuse. Tools & Frameworks: OPAL – A flexible Java bytecode analysis and manipulation framework (core developer until 2019) LectureDoc 2 – Web-based lecture material authoring and presentation system QScope – Open extensible metrics framework for modern software projects Sextant – Eclipse-integrated software exploration tool XIRC/IRC – Frameworks for enforcing system-wide properties and architectural constraints
Wei Yang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas, actively contributing to software engineering research through program committee roles at ICSE, FSE, ASE, and ISSTA conferences since 2015. His research focuses on software testing innovation , particularly in mobile security, GUI testing, and AI-driven test automation. Key contributions include frameworks for malware analysis (MalScan), UI exploration (Guardian, Vet), and neural network testing (DeepPerform, EREBA), addressing critical challenges in test oracle generation, flaky tests, and resource-constrained environments. Recent work demonstrates a strategic shift toward LLM and foundation model applications for testing, with 2023-2026 publications exploring vision-language models for GUI testing, parameter ownership in collaborative AI development, and instruction alignment in large language models. This evolution reflects the field's broader trajectory toward AI-integrated quality assurance.
Earl T. Barr is a Professor of Software Engineering at University College London (UCL), where he heads the System Software Engineering Group and is a member of the Centre for Research on Evolution, Search and Testing (CREST). His academic journey began with a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Davis in 2009, after which he joined UCL as faculty. His research spans multiple domains within software engineering, with particular focus on program analysis, type systems, automated program repair, and the emerging field of dual channel analysis that examines the interplay between natural language and formal programming language in source code. Barr's work on the 'naturalness of software' has been influential in understanding how code differs from natural language while exhibiting statistical regularities. Barr's publication record shows a strong trend toward integrating machine learning with traditional software engineering techniques, particularly in type inference (Typilus), program repair, and code understanding. His recent work increasingly focuses on dual channel analysis, exploring how the natural language elements in code (identifiers, comments) interact with the formal programming language to create a richer communication channel for developers. MSR 2019 Most Influential Paper Award Multiple ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Awards Best Paper Award at IEEE Conference on E-Commerce Technology (2005) Barr actively supervises numerous Ph.D. students and postdocs, with current projects focusing on dual channel program analysis, AI for code, and software security applications. He has established long-term collaborations with researchers at institutions including Royal Holloway and the University of Luxembourg. His teaching portfolio at UCL includes core courses in Malware, Compilers, and Validation and Verification, reflecting his broad expertise across the software engineering spectrum. Barr leads the System Software Engineering Group at UCL, which focuses on practical applications of software engineering research with strong connections to industry problems. The group's work bridges theoretical foundations with real-world software development challenges, particularly in the areas of program analysis and automated software maintenance.
Florian Kübler is a researcher at Technische Universitat Darmstadt, Germany, specializing in Programming Languages and Static Analysis . He has contributed to major conferences including PLDI, ISSTA, ESEC/FSE, and SOAP, focusing on topics like abstract interpretation, call graph construction, and modular program analysis. His work addresses challenges in code optimization, soundness evaluation, and runtime reusability in static analysis frameworks. Research Interests: Florian's research spans Abstract Interpretation for static analysis Modularization techniques in program analysis Call graph algorithms for Java Parallelization of static analyses Intermediate representation design Compiler and toolchain optimization Conference Contributions: His publications highlight expertise in static analysis frameworks (OPAL, SootKeeper), semi-implicit parallelization, and systematic evaluation of analysis soundness. Recent work (2022) explores collaborative program analysis, while earlier studies (2018-2020) focus on lattice-based modularization and call graph algorithms.
Diego Garbervetsky is an Associate Professor at the Computer Science Department, School of Sciences, University of Buenos Aires, and a Researcher at ICC/CONICET. He also serves as Director of the Institute of Research in Computer Sciences (ICC). His academic career spans software engineering, programming languages, and formal methods with a focus on program analysis and verification. His research interests include: Static and dynamic program analysis Reverse engineering and compiler optimizations Program understanding and validation Testing and verification of programs featuring rich protocols Automatic symbolic resource analysis (gas consumption, dynamic memory, energy, etc.) Garbervetsky's recent work focuses on smart contract analysis and verification, particularly for Solidity on Ethereum blockchain. His research bridges theoretical program analysis with practical applications in security-critical domains. He has developed several tools including Contractor for behavior validation, JConsume2 for heap memory analysis, and BudaPest for automated software verification. His scientific contributions have been presented at top-tier conferences including ICSE, FSE, ISSTA, and PLDI. Garbervetsky has served on numerous program committees for major software engineering conferences and has advised multiple PhD and undergraduate students through their research.
Adrian Sampson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University, where he is part of the Computer Systems Laboratory and the programming languages group. He joined Cornell in 2016 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2022. Prior to Cornell, he was a Visiting Researcher at Microsoft Research (2015-2016). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2015 under advisors Luis Ceze and Dan Grossman, with a dissertation on Hardware and Software for Approximate Computing. His research focuses on breaking down abstraction barriers and rethinking the hardware-software interface. He is particularly known for his work on approximate computing, which explores how computers can be more efficient by allowing them to make controlled mistakes. He leads the Capra research group at Cornell, which investigates programming languages and computer architecture. Sampson's recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on hardware acceleration, FPGA programming, compiler design, and programming language theory. His work often bridges the gap between high-level programming abstractions and low-level hardware implementation, with particular attention to predictability, verification, and energy efficiency. He has made significant contributions to geometry types for graphics programming, timeline types for modular hardware design, and virtual machines for FPGA programming. Among his notable recognitions are the IEEE TCCA Young Computer Architect Award (2021), NSF CAREER award (2019), and multiple Distinguished Artifact Awards at major conferences. He has advised numerous Ph.D. students who have gone on to positions at institutions like Wellesley College, Northwestern University, and Amazon. Sampson is actively involved in academic service, serving on program committees for major conferences including PLDI, ASPLOS, and ISCA. He has also held leadership roles such as ACM SIGARCH Board of Directors (2023-2025) and SIGPLAN Information Director. His teaching at Cornell includes courses on computer systems, programming languages, and advanced compilers.
Dominik Helm serves as an interim professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen and is a researcher at the Software Technology Group, Technical University of Darmstadt since 2018. He holds a Dr.-Ing. degree and serves as the lead maintainer of the OPAL static analysis framework. Helm is also affiliated with ATHENE (National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity) and CRISP, where he contributes to cybersecurity research focusing on 'Security at Large' for comprehensive systems. Dr. Helm's research centers on modularization and automatic parallelization of collaborative static analyses to improve precision, soundness, and performance. His work specifically targets the OPAL framework for Java VM bytecode, with expertise spanning purity and immutability analyses, modular call graphs, and bug/security vulnerability detection. His research bridges theoretical foundations with practical implementation, addressing real-world challenges in static analysis. His publication record shows consistent contributions to top-tier conferences (PLDI, ISSTA, ESEC/FSE, ASE) with recent work focusing on cross-language analysis, modular call graph algorithms, and evaluation of static analysis precision. Helm has demonstrated particular interest in making static analysis more practical through modularity and parallelization. As an educator, Helm teaches courses including Software Engineering, Type Systems, Quality Assurance, and Program Analysis at the University of Duisburg-Essen. He has supervised multiple student teams through bachelor and master projects, guiding research on call graphs for dynamic languages, IDE solvers, alias analysis, and immutability analysis. Dr. Helm actively contributes to the academic community through program committee service for ICSE, ISSTA, ASE, and other major conferences. His work with the OPAL framework represents a significant contribution to the static analysis community, providing a platform for developing and composing modular analyses for Java bytecode processing and analysis.
Peter W. O'Hearn is a Professor of Computer Science at University College London and a Research Scientist at Meta AI (FAIR). He has held academic positions at Syracuse University, Queen Mary University of London, and University College London, before joining Facebook (now Meta) in 2013 as part of the acquisition of the verification startup Monoidics. His career spans over 25 years of research in programming languages and logic, with significant contributions to both theoretical foundations and practical industrial applications. O'Hearn's research primarily focuses on formal reasoning about programs, with his most notable contributions being the co-invention (with John Reynolds) of Separation Logic and the development of Incorrectness Logic. His work bridges the gap between theoretical computer science and practical software engineering, emphasizing how fundamental theory, tool development, and real-world application can mutually reinforce each other. He has consistently advocated for the integration of formal methods into industrial software development practices. His research has led to the development of the Infer program analyzer, which runs internally on Meta's code bases and has detected over 100,000 bugs that have been fixed by developers. Infer is also used in production at other major companies including Amazon, Mozilla, Spotify, and Marks and Spencer. His recent work on Incorrectness Logic represents a paradigm shift from traditional program verification approaches, focusing on bug finding rather than correctness proving. O'Hearn has received numerous prestigious awards recognizing both his theoretical contributions and practical impact: Fellow of the Royal Society (elected 2018) Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2016) 2016 Gödel Prize 2016 CAV Award Two POPL MIP awards Honorary doctorate from Dalhousie University (2018) 2021 IEEE Cybersecurity Award for Practice Throughout his career, O'Hearn has successfully translated theoretical advances into practical tools used at scale in industry. His work on Separation Logic led directly to Infer, while his more recent work on Incorrectness Logic aims to provide foundations for next-generation bug catching tools. He has maintained a strong academic presence while working in industry, continuing his professorship at UCL alongside his role at Meta. O'Hearn leads research efforts at the intersection of formal methods and practical software engineering at Meta, focusing on scaling static analysis techniques to handle the massive codebases typical of modern technology companies. His work has significantly influenced how large tech companies approach software verification and bug detection.
Weihang Wang is a WiSE Gabilan Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on building testing and analysis techniques to improve the reliability, security, and efficiency of complex software systems, with particular expertise in WebAssembly technologies. Wang received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University in 2018. His educational background has provided a strong foundation for his research in software engineering and security, leading to numerous publications and awards in the field. His research spans multiple critical areas including WebAssembly analysis , software security , and program analysis . Wang's work addresses fundamental challenges in detecting and mitigating vulnerabilities in modern web applications and systems. His research group develops innovative approaches to static and dynamic analysis, bug detection, and security testing, with a strong emphasis on practical applications and real-world impact. Recent projects include developing frameworks for Spring analysis, WebAssembly function identification, and business flow tampering detection. Wang's publication record shows a clear trajectory of increasing impact in WebAssembly research, with multiple papers at top-tier conferences like WWW, ICSE, and FSE. His work spans from foundational analysis techniques to practical tools that address security and performance challenges in web technologies, demonstrating both theoretical depth and practical applicability. His scientific achievements have been recognized with prestigious awards including: N2Women Rising Stars in Networking and Communications (2024) University at Buffalo Exceptional Scholar - Young Investigator Award (2022) NSF CAREER Award (2021) Facebook Testing and Verification Research Award (2019) Mozilla Research Award (2019) Maurice H. Halstead Memorial Research Award (2018) Best Poster Award at ACSAC'22 Wang has successfully advised numerous graduate and undergraduate students, many of whom have published first-author papers at top conferences and secured positions at leading technology companies. He actively serves the research community through program committee roles at major software engineering and security conferences. His work has been supported by competitive grants from NSF, Facebook, and Mozilla, demonstrating the significance and potential impact of his research directions. At USC, Wang leads a vibrant research group focused on software engineering, security, and systems. The group is currently working on cutting-edge projects related to static/dynamic bug detection, program analysis for WebAssembly, attack investigation and detection, compiler testing, and performance profiling of modern web applications.
Tiago Cogumbreiro is an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he has been a faculty member since Fall 2018. His research focuses on advancing the foundations of parallel programming through rigorous quality assurance of languages and runtimes. Dr. Cogumbreiro received his PhD from the University of Lisbon (ULisboa) in March 2015 under Francisco Martins, where he developed techniques to handle barrier deadlocks including the Armus runtime verification tool. His educational background includes a B.Sc. from Universidade dos Açores, followed by research assistant work at Imperial College London (supervised by Nobuko Yoshida) and postdoctoral research at Georgia Tech and Rice University (supervised by Vivek Sarkar). As an expert in formal methods for high-performance computing, Dr. Cogumbreiro's work centers on detecting concurrency errors in parallel programs with special emphasis on GPU systems. His research spans theoretical contributions to deadlock avoidance policies and practical applications of Coq and Why3 for certified algorithms. Recent work demonstrates sophisticated approaches to static analysis of data-races in GPU programming, addressing fundamental challenges in parallel system reliability. His publication pattern reveals a consistent trajectory from foundational work on futures-based deadlock avoidance (2017) through behavioral type systems (2019) to current innovations in GPU program analysis (2023-2024). These contributions form a cohesive research program focused on mathematically rigorous approaches to parallel system correctness. Dr. Cogumbreiro actively contributes to the programming languages community through committee service at major conferences including PLDI (2020 Artifact Evaluation), SPLASH (2025 OOPSLA Review Committee), and PPoPP. His GitHub activity shows ongoing development of formal verification tools, particularly Coq-based projects like gorn-coq and habanero-coq that implement his theoretical contributions.
Delphine Demange is an Associate Professor in Computer Science at University of Rennes, working in the Epicure research group (formerly Celtique) at IRISA (UMR 6074 / Inria). Her research focuses on formal methods for programming languages and compilers, with particular emphasis on compiler verification, program semantics, and language-based security. Her research interests include formal semantics of programming languages, program transformations, compiler verification, static analysis, computer-aided verification, and language-based security. She has made significant contributions to the formal verification of compiler intermediate representations, particularly static single assignment (SSA) form, and has worked extensively on verified compilation techniques. Her publication record shows a consistent focus on formal verification of programming language constructs and compiler components. Recent work (2023-2025) centers on dataflow circuits and solvers, while earlier work (2015-2020) focused on SSA-based optimizations, garbage collection verification, and information-flow security architectures. Her research demonstrates a strong commitment to applying formal methods to practical compiler and language implementation problems. Her scientific awards include the EAPLS Best PhD Dissertation Award in 2012 and the Gilles Kahn PhD Thesis Award in 2013 for her thesis Semantic Foundations of Intermediate Program Representations . She serves on numerous program committees for major programming languages conferences including CC, CGO, OOPSLA, and POPL, and has held leadership roles such as Program Co-Chair for CC 2021 and General Co-Chair for JFLA 2023 and 2024. She is also a member of the CC Steering Committee (2021-2024). Her teaching portfolio includes undergraduate and graduate courses in programming, algorithmics, compilation, and program verification, with a particular focus on trustworthy programming techniques using deductive verification in Why3.
Sebastian Erdweg is a Professor at the Institute of Programming and Software Engineering at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU Mainz) in Germany. He actively contributes to the programming languages research community as evidenced by his extensive involvement in major conferences including PLDI, ECOOP, SPLASH, and ICFP. His leadership roles include serving as Workshops Co-Chair for ECOOP and ISSTA 2023, Steering Committee Chair for GPCE, and various program committee positions across multiple conferences. His research primarily focuses on programming language design and implementation, with particular expertise in incremental computation, Datalog-based systems, abstract interpretation, and language workbenches. Erdweg's work bridges theoretical foundations with practical applications in static analysis, compiler construction, and program transformation. His research demonstrates a consistent thread of improving developer productivity through better language design and tooling, with recent work emphasizing efficient incremental program analysis techniques. Erdweg's publication record shows a strong emphasis on Datalog as a foundation for program analysis, with increasing focus on incremental techniques and WebAssembly analysis in recent years. His work combines theoretical rigor with practical implementation, often resulting in open-source tools that advance the state of the art in language engineering. The consistent appearance of Datalog, incremental computation, and abstract interpretation across his publications indicates a cohesive research vision spanning over a decade. As an active member of the programming languages community, Erdweg has served in numerous organizational roles including Workshops Co-Chair for ECOOP and ISSTA 2023, Steering Committee Chair for GPCE, and various program committee positions. His contributions to conference organization demonstrate his standing within the academic community and commitment to advancing research in programming languages and software engineering.
Cormac Flanagan is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Baskin School of Engineering, University of California Santa Cruz. His research focuses on programming languages, security, and software verification, with particular expertise in concurrent programming, information flow control, and program analysis. Flanagan's research interests span multiple areas of programming languages and software security. He has made significant contributions to the fields of information flow control, concurrent programming verification, and dynamic analysis techniques. His work on dynamic race detection, particularly the FastTrack algorithm, has been highly influential in the field, earning him a PLDI Most Influential Paper Award. He has also pioneered techniques for secure information flow, including the development of faceted values and secure multi-execution approaches, which earned him a POPL Most Influential Paper Award. His recent publications demonstrate a continued focus on program verification, with particular attention to concurrent software, JavaScript verification, and serverless computing security. Flanagan's work often bridges theoretical foundations with practical implementations, resulting in tools like the Anchor Verifier for concurrent software that provide practical verification solutions for real-world programming challenges. Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow POPL Most Influential Paper Award for 'Multiple Facets for Dynamic Information Flow' PLDI Most Influential Paper Award for 'FastTrack: Efficient and Precise Dynamic Race Detection' PLDI Most Influential Paper Award for 'Extended Static Checking for Java' ECOOP 2024 Distinguished Paper Award for 'Mover Logic: A Concurrent Program Logic for Reduction and Rely-Guarantee Reasoning' CSF Distinguished Paper Award for 'Transparent IFC Enforcement: Possibility and (In)Efficiency Results' PLDI Distinguished Artifact Award for 'BigFoot: Static Check Placement for Dynamic Race Detection' ECOOP Best Paper Award for 'RedCard: Redundant Check Elimination for Dynamic Race Detectors' ISSTA Distinguished Paper Award for 'Exploiting Purity for Atomicity' UCSC Excellence in Teaching Award Professor Flanagan has advised numerous PhD students who have gone on to successful careers in industry and academia, including positions at Google, Shape Security, and San Jose State University. He serves as Steering Committee Chair for the ACM Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI) and as Associate Editor for ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS). His research has been supported by various grants from funding agencies, though specific details are not provided in the available information. Flanagan leads research projects including the Anchor Verifier for Concurrent Software, data race detection tools, the RoadRunner dynamic analysis infrastructure, and work on cooperable concurrency. His research group at UC Santa Cruz focuses on developing practical techniques for ensuring software reliability and security, with applications to concurrent programming, web security, and cloud computing environments.
Thomas A. Henzinger is President and Professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), a position held since 2009. Previously, he served as professor at EPFL (2005-2009) and UC Berkeley (1996-2005), establishing himself as a leading figure in formal methods and system verification. His educational background includes a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University (1991), an MSc from the University of Colorado Boulder (1989), and a Diplom-Ingenieur from Johannes Kepler University Linz (1988). Henzinger's research centers on formal methods for system design and verification. He develops theoretical frameworks and practical tools for analyzing concurrent, distributed, and cyber-physical systems. Key contributions span model checking, abstraction techniques, quantitative analysis, and real-time system verification, with applications in software engineering and biological modeling. Recent publications (2015-2022) demonstrate sustained innovation in asynchronous programming, distributed algorithms, and robustness analysis. His work bridges theoretical foundations with practical verification challenges, particularly in sequentialization of asynchronous programs, Lipschitz robustness for timed systems, and worst-case execution time analysis. Major scientific recognition includes: ACM Fellow (2001) IEEE Fellow (2001) Wittgenstein Award (2000) Royal Society Milner Award (2014) Henzinger has supervised numerous PhD students at UC Berkeley and EPFL, with research funded by NSF, DARPA, and ERC grants including an Advanced Grant. His leadership extends to program committees of premier conferences like PLDI and POPL. As IST Austria President, he drives strategic initiatives for interdisciplinary research while maintaining active contributions to computer science through publications and community engagement.
