9 PhD Positions in "Dependable Internet of Things"

I am hiring a PhD in Model-based Testing and Automata Learning as part of

9 University Assistant Positions in "Dependable Internet of Things"
Graz University of Technology, Austria

The Excellence Research Center "Dependable Internet of Things in Adverse Environments" at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) has been established in 2016 and has been extended until 2021 after a successful midterm evaluation. For further information see http://dependablethings.tugraz.at. The mission of this long-term center is to foster a highly interdisciplinary research team spanning the computer science and electrical engineering faculties to lay the scientific foundations for an Internet of Things that is highly reliable, safe, and secure in order to enable critical applications that require guaranteed performance and long-term operation even in adverse environments. The center is seeking to fill 9 University Assistant positions with excellent candidates, who will pursue their PhD working closely together in three sub-projects that focus on the following topics:

1. Dependable Wireless Communication and Localization: one position in wireless networking (Institute for Technical Informatics), one position in physical layer signal processing (Signal Processing and Speech Communication Lab), and one position in tunable microwave frontends (Institute for Microwave and Photonic Engineering).

2.  Verified Dependability by Design: one position in embedded security and one position in formal verification (both at Institute of Applied Information Processing and Communications), one position in real-time operating systems (Institute for Technical Informatics), one position in model-based testing (Institute for Software Technology).

3. Dependable Multi-Agent Systems: one position in robotics (Institute for Software Technology), and one position in information and control theory (Signal Processing and Speech Communication Lab).

Applicants must hold a Master degree (or equivalent) in computer engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, or a related field before they can take on the position. Proficiency in the English language (spoken and written) is required. Applicants should be highly motivated, take initiative and responsibility, be able to work independently and in an interdisciplinary team, should have interest in scientific research, be committed to publish research results and to obtain a doctoral degree (PhD).

The positions are to be filled as soon as possible from July 2019 with an initial appointment for three years. Each position is remunerated according to the collective contract (Kollektivvertrag) for Austrian Universities, salary scale B1, the annual salary amounts to 40.103 EUR/year before taxes and may increase in case of relevant prior work experience.

TU Graz aims to increase the number of female employees and therefore specifically invites qualified women to apply.

TU Graz is a leading technical university in Austria (rank 75-100 in Shanghai subject ranking "Computer Science & Engineering") in a medium-sized city with a very high quality of life, located at the south-eastern foot of the Alps, offering plentiful recreation opportunities.

Applicants should fill in the application form at http://dependablethings.tugraz.at/jobs and upload it together with a transcript of records, a copy of the master's degree, a recent certificate of the level of proficiency of the English language, a copy of the master's thesis, and any recommendation letter of your former advisor(s) at http://lampz.tugraz.at/~dependablethings/. The application deadline is 07.06.2019. The ID of this job post is 4480/19/010. For further information please contact the center coordinator Prof. Kay Roemer <roemer@tugraz.at>.

Professional Activities in 2019

Here is a summary of my activities in 2019. This list will be updated as tasks come along.

• Key Researcher in the project Dependable Things 
• Invited speaker at UTP 2019, the 7th International Symposium on Unifying Theories of Programming, celebrating Tony Hoare's 85th birthday, Porto, Portugal, 8 Oct 2019.
• Member of AVL's Strategic Research Partnership Program (AVL SRP), subtopic: Intelligent Cognitive Systems. 
• Steering board member of TAP, the International Conference on Tests and Proofs
• PC Member of 
• FM 2019, 23rd International Symposium on Formal Methods
• UTP 2019, 7th International Symposium on Unifying Theories of Programming
• iFM 2019, 15th International Conference on integrated Formal Methods
• FMICS2019, Formal Methods for Industrially Critical Systems
• IFIP ICTSS 2019, 31st International Conference on Testing Software and Systems
• ICFEM 2019, 21st International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods
• A-MOST 2019, 15th Workshop on Advances in Model Based Testing
• Refine 2019, Refinement Workshop
• ITEQS 2019, 3rd International Workshop on Testing Extra-Functional Properties and Quality Characteristics of Software Systems
• Guest Editor of the Wiley journal Software Testing, Verification and Reliability (STVR) for a special issue on Testing Extra-Functional Properties. 
• Member of the selection boards for 
• a full professorship in Information Security
• a tenure track position in Cryptography
• external master students in the programmes Computer Science and Software Engineering and Management
• Teaching 
• Quality Assurance in Software Development, 
• Software Paradigms, 
• Model-based Testing, 
• Logic and Logic Programming, and 
• Functional Programming.

Professional Activities in 2018

Here is a summary of my activities in 2018. This list will be updated as tasks come along.

• Key Researcher in the projects 
• Dependable Things, 
• TRUCONF.
• Invited speaker at the 
• 8th Halmstad Summer School on Testing, HSST 2018, Halmstad, Sweden, 11-14 Jun, 2018,
• 2nd Symposium on Dependable Internet of Things,  Graz, Austria, 5 Jun 2018.
• School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China, 10 Sep 2018.
• Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISCAS), Beijing, China 11 Sep 2018. 
• Program Co-chair of the 2nd International Workshop on Testing Extra-Functional Properties and Quality Characteristics of Software Systems (ITEQS 2018), 9 Apr 2018, Västeros, Sweden.
• Member of the selection board for the 
• tenure track position in cyber-security,
• full professorship in Information Security. 
• Member of AVL's Strategic Research Partnership Program, subtopic: Future Development Technologies & Processes. 
• PC Member of 
• FM 2018, International Symposium on Formal Methods
• ICFEM 2018, 20th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods
• iFM 2018, 14th International Conference on integrated Formal Methods
• ICTSS 2018, 30th International Conference on Testing Software and Systems
• TAP 2018, 12th International Conference on Tests & Proofs
• A-MOST 2018, 14th Workshop on Advances in Model Based Testing
• Refine 2018, Refinement Workshop
• Guest Editor of the Springer Journal Formal Aspects of Computing for a special issue of TAP 2016. 
• Teaching 
• Quality Assurance in Software Development, 
• Software Paradigms, 
• Model-based Testing, 
• Logic and Logic Programming, and 
• Functional Programming.

New article on requirements modelling, model-based testing and traceability

Our article on combining requirements modelling, test-case generation and traceability appeared in the Springer STTT journal.

The paper describes how we

1. model requirements as contracts in the form of assume-guarantee conditions 
2. generate test cases efficiently out of the models via SMT solving and an incremental algorithm
3. add traceability information linking requirements, contracts, generated test-cases and test results
4. demonstrated its feasibility with our industrial partner Infineon on airbag electronics.  

All of this comes with solid foundations and precise semantics.

Bernhard K. Aichernig, Klaus Hörmaier, Florian Lorber, Dejan Nickovic, and Stefan Tiran. Require, test, and trace IT. International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer (STTT), 19:409–426, 2017. Open Access. Published online: 29 November 2016. (PDF) (doi:10.1007/s10009-016-0444-z)

It is open access and can be freely accessed at Springer.

Enjoy!