Programming Languages, Formal Methods, and Software Engineering
The growing complexity and scale of software poses formidable challenges for reliability, security, performance, and productivity. Our faculty tackle these problems by developing innovative techniques in programming language design and semantics; techniques and tools for formal verification, software testing, and automated debugging; and models and verification techniques for embedded systems that interact with physical entities.
We are known for theoretical advances such as the Actor model of concurrency; rewriting logic and related semantic frameworks; concolic testing for automated test generation; automated logic reasoning; automated inference of specifications and invariants; and control-theoretic techniques for analyzing cyberphysical systems. We have also produced widely-used tools and techniques like the Maude rewriting engine; the LLVM compiler infrastructure; the Chisel optimization system for approximate computing; the first complete formalizations of C, Java, and Javascript; regression test suite reduction techniques; and educational tools based on automated test generation (CodeHunt;Pex4Fun) that have attracted over a million users.
CS Faculty and Their Research Interests
| Vikram Adve | software security, programming models for heterogeneous platforms |
| Gul Agha | models for concurrent computation; parallel and distributed algorithms |
| Elsa Gunter | software engineering, programming languages, formal methods |
| Darko Marinov | software engineering, reliability & testing, theorem proving, model checking, rich specification languages |
| Jose Meseguer | formal executable specification and verification, software architecture |
| Sasa Misailovic | program optimization systems, approximate computing techniques |
| David Padua | program analysis, transformation, and optimization |
| Madhusudan Parthasarathy | formal methods, software verification, model checking, decidable logics |
| Grigore Rosu | software, design, semantics and implementation of programming specification languages |
| Mahesh Viswanathan | algorithmic verification of cyberphysical systems |
| Tao Xie | software engineering, software testing, program analysis, software analytics |
Affiliate Faculty
| Andrew Miller, Electrical & Computer Engineering | design of secure decentralized systems and cryptocurrencies |
| Sayan Mitra, Electrical & Computer Engineering |
formal methods, automated reasoning |
Adjunct Faculty
| Danny Dig, EECS Department, Oregon State University | software engineering, general and interactive program transformations |
Programming Languages, Formal Methods, and Software Engineering Research Efforts and Groups
- PL/FM/SE at Illinois
- Coordinated Science Lab (CSL)
- Assured Cloud Computing-University Center of Excellence (ACC-UCoE) in the Information Trust Institute
- Science of Security (SOS) Lablet in the Information Trust Institute
- The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure
Seminars
Brett Daniel Software Engineering Seminar (cs591se), named in memory of Brett Daniel
https://wiki.cites.illinois.edu/wiki/display/SoftEng/Home
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Programming Languages, Formal Methods, and Software Engineering Research News
Misailovic Wins NSF CAREER Award to Develop Tools to Improve Applications That Rely on Noisy Data
May 13, 2019 Misailovic plans to investigate whether the foundation for handling noisy data can be built on static program analysis, and to develop related coursework.
The Brave Browser Launches Ads that Reward Users for Viewing
April 24, 2019TechCrunch -- With the latest desktop version of the Brave browser, users can now opt-in to the Brave Ads program. Brave is an ad-blocking web browser startup led by Brendan Eich (MS CS '86), creator of the JavaScript programming language and former Mozilla CEO. He’s long maintained that the vision is “bigger than an ad blocker.”
Bootstrapping in Chicago
April 23, 2019ChicagoInno -- "Runtime Verification, founded in 2011 and based in Urbana, is building technology that identifies problems in a company’s software. Since launching, Runtime has grown only on revenue made from its business contracts. It now employs a team of 30."
Illinois CS Faculty Recognized for Excellence in Research and Teaching by College of Engineering
April 15, 2019 Nahrstedt wins Drucker Eminent Faculty Award, Fleck the Rose Award for Teaching Excellence, and Smaragdis and Kumar the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research.
Gul Agha Shares Research on Wireless Sensors Used to Monitor Bridges and Civil Infrastructure
March 27, 2019Illinois Innovators podcast -- Gul Agha, professor of computer science and Director of the Open Systems Laboratory at the University of Illinois, joins the program. His widely cited work, "Actors: A Model of Concurrent Computing in Distributed Systems," provided a basis for a number of research projects in concurrent programming. Actor frameworks have been used to program Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook Chat, and more.