For formal methods folks looking for a new position: Veridise is hiring a formal methods researcher to work on verification/analysis tools targeting zero-knowledge applications. More details are here: veridise.com/careers/zk-res…

Super excited about this verification work that we've been doing with RISC Zero! They've using our tool to prove the determinism of circuits in their ZKVM -- it's truly exciting to see formal methods having real-world impact!!

Special recognition goes to the amazing Shankara Pailoor for tirelessly improving the tool over the last two years to get it to where it is today!

🚀Introducing CRUST-Bench, a dataset for C-to-Rust transpilation for full codebases 🛠️ A dataset of 100 real-world C repositories across various domains, each paired with: 🦀 Handwritten safe Rust interfaces. 🧪 Rust test cases to validate correctness. 🧵[1/6]

For folks interested in C-to-Rust translation, we put together a benchmark suite you can evaluate on!

The FY26 budget slashes NSF by 55%, which directly threatens basic research in the United States. Please call your reps NOW and tell them to reject these cuts and protect science funding. You can find them here : congress.gov/members

It's been a real honor and privilege to be your PhD advisor Shankara Pailoor and Ben Mariano! I am truly so proud of everything you both have accomplished.

Revoking visas to Chinese PhD students is economically shortsighted and inhumane. Most Chinese PhD students stay in the U.S. after graduation (first image, stats from 2022). They're staying and building technology in the U.S., not taking it to China. Immigrant students create

Greg Durrett put it so well. My sentiments exactly

1/3 The US didn’t end up leading the world in computing by luck. It happened because it made long-term, public investments in basic research, especially through NSF. That’s what created the technology that today’s companies are built on.

2/3 Now, with Congress moving to slash NSF funding,  that very foundation is at risk. CISE, the directorate that funds computing research, is facing a 65% cut. The US research ecosystem cannot survive cuts like this.

3/3 If you’ve built a company, a career, or a product on top of that system, now is the time to speak up -- before the damage is irreversible.

Moshe Vardi nails it in this article: cacm.acm.org/opinion/big-te… Big Tech owes much of its success to decades of public investment in research, which is now under serious threat. Please speak up in whatever way you can: reach out to your representatives, write an op-ed, post, share...

Just learned that Isil Dillig won the #SIGPLAN Robin Milner Junior researcher award this year! 🎈 🍾 The award goes to one outstanding mid-career PL researcher each year, and it’s hard to think of a more deserving candidate for it. Congratulations, Isil! sigplan.org/Awards/Milner/

Thank you Swarat Chaudhuri! I’m very honored to receive this award

Last but not least, the SIGPLAN Robin Milner Young Researcher Award was also announced at PLDI. This year, the award went to Işıl Dillig (Isil Dillig), whose research has had profound and far-reaching contributions to program analysis, verification, and synthesis ⭐️

An excerpt from the award citation: Her work is distinguished by extraordinary technical depth, breadth, and originality. She has repeatedly anticipated emerging trends, notably pioneering the integration of machine learning with formal methods.

You can read the complete citation (which is very big to paste here) at the SIGPLAN website: sigplan.org/Awards/Milner/!

CRUST-bench was accepted to Conference on Language Modeling #COLM2025!

UTCS is hiring in all areas, including PL! Please DM me if you are on the job market this year and interested in joining our wonderful department :)