New DC on Automated Reasoning

Security and Machine Learning have a massive societal impact: the safety of self-driving cars and the accuracy of judicial or medical decisions made by artificial intelligence hinges on the reliability of the underlying software and algorithms.

How can we safeguard electronic systems against catastrophic malfunctions? Automated reasoning and formal verification are increasingly deployed as a countermeasure to these threats. Automated reasoners nowadays routinely perform millions of security checks in cloud computing, analyze millions of lines of code, and are increasingly used to ensure the robustness and fairness of neural networks. These advances are driven by foundational research as well as applications, within a remarkably close collaboration of industrial research labs and academia.

Consequently, there is a large demand for experts in these fields. The solution to this shortage lies in the education of future leaders at the intersection of security and machine learning with a strong background in automated reasoning.

The doctoral program on Automated Reasoning is designed to educate these experts. On a scientific level, it targets foundational questions such as rigorously defining the notion of safety and security across domains and applications, the development of automated techniques and analyses to ensure safety and security of electronic systems, and explores synergies between the fields of security and artificial intelligence. The scientific excellence of the program is warranted by a faculty of seven outstanding researchers (and recipients of competitive awards) with close ties to industry.

Doctoral students receive solid foundations spanning several of the sub-disciplines that make up the program (through area courses). The interdisciplinarity of their research is ensured via close co-supervision by faculty members with complementary expertise and frequent exchange and collaboration with their colleagues (in retreats, seminars, and social events). Moreover, the program provides the opportunity of international secondments or internships with our research partners in industry and academia, exposing the students to novel ideas, different working cultures, and opening up new career perspectives. Throughout the program, students are offered mentoring and support for career planning, and workshops on innovation and entrepreneurship. Moreover, a strong focus on ethics early in the program prepares the students for difficult ethical questions they are going to face in their careers.

The new Doctoral College has seven Principal Investigators (PIs):

• Ezio Bartocci, Professor of Cyber-Physical Systems
• Maria Christakis, Professor and Head of the Research Unit Software Engineering
• Katalin Fazekas, Assistant Professor of Formal Methods in Systems Engineering
• Thomas Gärtner, Professor and Head of the Research Unit Machine Learning
• Laura Kovacs, Professor and Head of the Research Unit Formal Methods in Systems Engineering
• Matteo Maffei, Professor and Head of the Research Unit Security and Privacy