Personnel

From Dependability

Contents

Faculty

John C. Knight, PhD

Dr. Knight's research interests are in software dependability, and he is presently leading two research projects in that area. The first is in the area of formal methods. The goal is to develop industrial strength formal techniques by working closely with industry. Specific research topics include tools for the development of formal specifications, experimental assessment of formal techniques with industrial research partners, and the development of a comprehensive approach to the use of natural language in requirements analysis and formal specification.

The second research project is developing techniques designed to enhance the survivability of critical networked infrastructure applications. Specific research topics include network architectures that facilitate survivability, the security of those architectures, and the modeling of very large networks.

David Evans, PhD

Dr. Evans's current research is focused on how embedding computing devices in a physical environment changes security, how automated diversity can be used to improve security, how artificial diversity can be used in the N-variant systems framework to provide strong security assurances, and on how to make program analyses more useful and less expensive.

As a result of Senate Joint Resolution 371, Dr. Evans was appointed in April 2005 by the Speaker of House of Delegates as a citizen member with computer security expertise to the HJR 174: Joint Subcommittee on Voting Equipment Certification.

Jack W. Davidson, PhD

Dr. Davidson was a principal investigator of the National Compiler Infrastructure (NCI) project funded by DARPA and the NSF. Zephyr, a tool suite for compiler and architecture research, is the centerpiece of this work. The NCI work is continuing under both industrial and government funding. He is also a principal investigator of a recently funded NSF project to design and build new software development environments for high-performance embedded applications (e.g., wireless video, digital cameras, etc.). This is joint work with Doug Jones of the University of Illinois and David Whalley of Florida State University. He is also working on dynamic optimization with a focus on performance-driven computing. This is joint work with Bruce Childers of the University of Pittsburgh and Mary Lou Soffa of the University of Virginia.

Dr. Davidson is also the coauthor of two introductory programming textbooks. C++ Program Design, 3e, a best-selling introductory programming textbook, teaches programming and object-oriented design using C++ . It includes a simple graphics package, called EzWindows, that exposes beginning programmers to event-based programming. Java Program Design was published early summer 2003. This textbook teaches programming and object-oriented design using Java. Accompanying the textbook are instructor Powerpoint slides, a solution manual for the exercises, and a bank of test questions.

Westley Weimer, PhD

Dr. Weimer's main research interest lies in advancing software quality by using both static and dynamic programming language approaches. He is particularly concerned with automatic or minimally-guided techniques that can scale and be applied easily to large, existing programs. He believes that finding bugs is insufficient, and also works to help programmers address defects, understand error reports, and program correctly. He is also interested in designing languages and language features to help prevent errors.

Research Manager

Anh Nguyen-Tuong, PhD

Dr. Nguyen-Tuong's research is currently focussed on designing survivable large-scale grid systems, protecting web applications (PHPrevent), and securing applications through diversity (Genesis, N-Variant Systems).

Staff

Michele Co

Clark Coleman

Jason Hiser

Kimberly S. Wasson

Graduate Students

Advised by John Knight

Advised by David Evans

Advised by Jack Davidson

Advised by Westley Weimer


Alumni

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