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Multiple Post-Doctoral and PhD Positions at Stevens Institute of Technology

The Department of Computer Science at Stevens Institute of Technology in New York City is seeking applicants for multiple Postdoctoral Researcher and PhD Student positions in the area of systems security and formal methods. Stevens Computer Science is a rapidly expanding department and we are looking for talented young researchers to join. Successful applicants are expected to participate in a rigorous research program on topics such as software & network security, program analysis, formal verification, hardware & language-based security, and IoT security.

RESEARCH

Successful applicants will work primarily on one of two new research projects, lead by Prof. Georgios Portokalidis and Prof. Eric Koskinen, respectively:
  1. Attack surface reduction and protection of software binaries. This project aims to develop novel methods and tools that can effectively and comprehensively reduce the attack surface and secure deployed applications. Successful applicants should have a combination of creativity, self-motivation, strong programming skills, and a desire to understand how systems and software work to devise practical solutions for improving their security and reliability. While we encourage all interested candidates to apply, knowledge in one or more of the following areas would be beneficial:
    • Analysis methods for binaries (dynamic or static)
    • Software exploitation
    • Reverse engineering
    • Operating systems
    • Compilers & linkers
  2. Formal verification of program transformations. This project aims to develop automatic software verification techniques to ensure the correctness of programs that have been transformed. Specifically, our goal is to formally prove that some aspects of the program behavior have remained the same (e.g. during coarse-grained optimizations), whereas others have changed (due to feature reduction and security changes). These problems come with both specification and scalability challenges. Successful applicants should have a combination of creativity, self-motivation, and strong interests in applying formal verification to solve practical problems. While we encourage all interested candidates to apply, knowledge in one or more of the following areas would be beneficial:
    • Formal reasoning about programs and program transformations
    • Automatic Software Verification
    • Abstract Interpretation
    • Temporal Logic
    • Mathematical/logical foundations of automatic verification
    • Deduction, composition, and abstraction for verification

New Postdoctoral Researchers and PhD Students will collaborate with current researchers and students at Stevens, as well as with other faculty members active in the area of security, systems, verification and programming languages.

HOW TO APPLY

Postdoctoral Researcher applicants must have a Ph.D. in Computer Science or a closely related field. The term of the position is for the duration of the project (ending August 2020), subject to annual renewals based on satisfactory performance. Position is available immediately; later starting dates are negotiable. Interested applicants should email a CV, and the names of three references with their email addresses and phone numbers to gportoka@stevens.edu or eric.koskinen@stevens.edu.

PhD student applicants must have BS degree in Computer Science or a closely related field. An MS degree is not required and students can start in the fall or spring semester. All PhD students are fully funded, including their tuition and a generous stipend. Interested applicants should email a CV to or and submit an application via http://www.stevens.edu/ses/cs/graduate/doctorate.

More information regarding the project leads can be found at

Inquiries can be directed to any PI.