Research faculty and postdoctoral positions are available in the LLRM project with the Systems Software Research Group at Virginia Tech on DARPA-funded projects. The positions involve conducting research at the intersection of program analysis and formal verification toward developing trustworthy tools for reasoning about safety and security properties. Opportunities exist to investigate a broad set of topics, including scalable program analysis tools for reasoning about safety and security properties, automated reasoning of emergent program behaviors (e.g., weird machines) and verifying their non-exploitability, techniques for verified operating system kernel extensions, logic frameworks for automatic reasoning of security properties, verified decompilation, and automatic patching with provable security properties. Opportunities also exist to investigate project-relevant topics of mutual interest.
For research faculty positions, we are seeking researchers with a background and expertise in any of the following areas: binary/program analysis, formal verification, compilers, and security. Candidates must have a well-established track record of published research at relevant conferences and journals at the level commensurate with a Research Assistant Professor or Research Associate Professor ranking. Experience developing proposals and managing funded programs as Principal Investigator (or Co-Principal Investigator), mentoring graduate students, and the ability to work under limited supervision are necessary.
For postdoctoral positions, we are seeking recent PhD graduates in Computer Science or Engineering (or related fields) with a background and publication record in verification, security, or program analysis. Background in formal verification and tools (e.g., SMT solvers, model checkers, proof assistants), program analysis techniques, low-level system software, including assembly code and ISA semantics, and functional programming is highly desirable. The positions have no teaching obligations.
Interested candidates are requested to contact Prof. Binoy Ravindran (binoy@vt.edu) with a CV or for any questions.