Anthony Widjaja Lin

(previously known as Anthony Widjaja To)

News

• (Dec'18) Two papers accepted for presentations at POPL'19.
• (May'18) I will be chairing the PC of ICECCS'18 with Jun Sun, to be held in Melbourne (Australia) this December. I will also be chairing the PC of APLAS'19 to be held in Indonesia. Please submit your best papers!
• (Nov'17) Our new string solver Sloth that combines concatenations, transducers, regular constraints, and length constraints to be presented at POPL'18.
• (Oct'17) I have PhD studentships and postdoc positions for those who have solid backgrounds in PL and/or formal methods. The projects are on two different topics: (i) algorithmic verification of string manipulating programs (including developing constraint solvers over the string domain), and (ii) analysis of Cascading Style Sheets. Email me if you are interested.
• (Sept'17) Papers on string solving accepted to POPL'18.
• (Sept'17) I have been awarded an ERC Starting Grant. Thanks to everyone who supported me!
• (July'17) New paper accepted at FMCAD'17 on learning to prove safety over parameterised concurrent systems
• (Feb'17) Thanks to Google for the Faculty Research Award for a project on Cascading Style Sheet Minification (with M. Hague as a co-PI)
• Please submit your best work to LICS 2018

Background

• Associate Professor in Programming Languages at Oxford University Department of Computer Science and Governing Body Fellow at Kellogg College
• Previously: assistant professor at Yale-NUS, Singapore (2014-2016) and EPSRC postdoctoral research fellow in theoretical computer science at Oxford (2010-2013)
• Completed PhD in Informatics at University of Edinburgh in 2010 under Leonid Libkin (supervisor) and Richard Mayr (co-advisor).
• Completed BSc (Honours) in Computer Science and Mathematics in 2004 at University of Melbourne, Australia.
• Follow me on twitter: @anthonywlin

Research

My research interests lie in the development of logical methods for programming technologies, which includes constraint solving (especially, over the string domain), formal verification, and program analysis, especially motivated by problems in (i) web security/optimisation, (ii) analysis of concurrent programs with many processes, and (iii) databases. I am interested in all aspects of the field, ranging from theory to systems. In particular, I strongly believe in the importance of theory, tool construction, and case studies to make serious research advances.

• Current research projects:
  • Constraint solving and program analysis for the Web:
    • String solving for vulnerability detection in web applications.
    • Web performance optimisation, e.g., detecting redundant CSS rules.
  • Verification of sequential and concurrent programs:
    • Parameterised systems: reasoning about an unbounded number of processes
    • Systematic testing and debugging via model checking
    • Regular model checking
• Past projects:
  • Transducer-based approach to infinite-state model checking
  • Model checking REcursive programs with COUNTers
• Some tools:
  • OSTRICH - hitherto the fastest string solver that supports concatenation, replaceall, regular constraints, and other complex string operations like transducers.
  • Sloth - a new string solver that combines concatenation, transducers, replace, regular constraints, and length constraints.
  • SLRP - for automatically verifying liveness for randomised parameterised systems and distributed protocols, and reasoning about two-player reachability games.
  • ParaSymmetry - for automatically verifying/synthesising symmetry patterns and simulation preorder for parameterised systems (see our VMCAI paper).
  • TreePed - for detecting redundant CSS rules in HTML5 applications (see here for a detailed description).
  • ReCount - for verifying integer-manipulating concurrent recursive programs via reversal/synchronisation bounding (see our CAV'11 paper and CAV'12 paper).
• Publications (on Google Scholar|||| on DBLP)

Postdocs:

• Reino Niskanen (2018 - present)
• Xuan-Bach Le (2018 - present)

PhD Students:

• Chih-Duo Hong (2017 - present)
• Xuan Bach Le (2014 - 2017)

Events:

• PC chair/organiser:
  • APLAS 2019
  • ICECCS 2018
  • INFINITY 2016
  • IMS Workshop Series on Automata, Logic and Games (2016)
• Program committee member:
  • PPDP 2019
  • ATVA 2019
  • VMCAI 2019
  • CAV 2019 Verification Mentoring Workshop
  • LICS 2018
  • ICALP 2017
  • PSI 2017
  • FoSSaCS 2017
  • APLAS 2016
  • PSI 2015
  • LICS 2015
  • INFINITY 2013

Teaching

• Past (selected):
  • Object Oriented Programming (2017)
  • Theory of Computation - Instructor/Lecturer (Spring 2016)
  • Introduction to Computational Thinking and Programming for All - Instructor/Lecturer (Spring 2016)
  • 2 x Scientific Inquiry - Instructor/Lecturer (Fall 2015)
  • Logic for formal verification - co-lecturer (Summer 2015, National Taiwan University)
  • Introduction to Computational Thinking and Programming for All - Instructor/Lecturer (Spring 2015, Yale-NUS)
  • Quantitative Reasoning - Instructor/Lecturer (Spring 2015, Yale-NUS)
  • Scientific Inquiry - Instructor/Lecturer (Fall 2014, Yale-NUS)
  • Automata, Logic, and Games - Co-lecturer (2012, Oxford)
  • Theory of Data and Knowledge Bases - Tutor (2011, Oxford)