CONCUR Test-of-Time Awards 2026

As annoounced on the CONCUR 2026 website, the 2026 CONCUR Test-of-Time Award Committee, consisting of Anca Muscholl (chair), Javier Esparza and Prakash Panangaden, has selected the following two papers for the 2006-2009 ToT award.

• CONCUR 2006: "A New Type System for Deadlock-Free Processes" by Naoki Kobayashi, and
• CONCUR 2007: "Strategy Logic" by Krishnendu Chatterjee, Thomas A. Henzinger and Nir Piterman. 

Congratulations to the award recipients and to the CONCUR community as a whole! The award committee made a truly wonderful choice.

Estonian-Latvian Computer Science Theory Days 2026

The Estonian-Latvian Computer Science Theory Days 2026 will be at the University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia, in the period 24-26 April 2026. (Hat tip: My colleague Tarmo Uustalu at the Department of Computer Science at Reykjavik University.) Quoting from the event's website,

"The main goal of the Theory Days is to let the theoretical computer scientists of our two countries to get acquainted with the work of each other. However, people from other countries are welcome to participate as well. The main audience is intended to be the graduate students in the roles of both listeners and presenters."

The first joint Estonian-Latvian Theory Days were held in 2010 and this year's edition of the event will feature an invited talk by Robert Tarjan. Last year, Robert Tarjan gave a public lecture at the University of Tartu entitled “My Life with Data Structures”. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFHIueXFHWg for a recording of that talk. 

Note that the deadlines for registration and for proposing a talk is today.

Kudos to our colleagues in Estonia and Latvia for organising the theory days!

GandALF 2026: First call for papers

The Seventeenth International Symposium on Games, Automata, Logics, and Formal Verification (GandALF 2026) will be held in Aalborg, Denmark, in the period 15-17 September 2026. See

https://gandalfsymposium.github.io/2026/

for more information and the call for papers. The PC is co-chaired by Giorgio Bacci (Aalborg University, Denmark) and Mickaël Randour (Université de Mons, Belgium) and the event will be co-organised by Giorgio and Elli Anastasiadi.

Spread the news and submit to the event!

Five AI-related PhD/Postdoc Positions at Reykjavik University

Glóð.ai, one of the two EU-cofunded projects in which my colleague Anna Liebel is involved, is opening a number of research opportunities in the area of AI and HPC. What follows is largely a copy-paste of text Anna wrote.

Reykjavik University has 5 PhD/Postdoc positions open for applications. Some of them are purely at the Department of Computer Science, several will be co-supervised between our department and our engineering colleagues, and one is even at the Department of Law.

If you or any of your (recent) students want to help my colleagues make the European AI infrastructure stronger and more competitive, work in research and support local businesses and the public sector with AI adoption and development, all while living in stunning Iceland, please apply!

Here are the links for the position announcements.

• https://jobs.50skills.com/ru/en/41631
• https://jobs.50skills.com/ru/en/41348
• https://jobs.50skills.com/ru/en/41225
• https://jobs.50skills.com/ru/en/41239
• https://jobs.50skills.com/ru/is/41088 (PhD in Law, in Icelandic)

28th Estonian Winter School in Computer Science

The 28th edition of the Estonian Winter School in Computer Science was held in the period 2-5 March in Viinistu, a small fishing village located on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. This edition of the school was organised by Cybernetica AS and the programme/organising committee included 

• Peeter Laud (Cybernetica AS), 
• Monika Perkmann (Tallinn University of Technology),
• Pille Pullonen-Raudvere (Cybernetica AS),
• Ago-Erik Riet (University of Tartu) and
• Tarmo Uustalu (Reykjavik University and Tallinn University of Technology). 

The main objective of this series of winter schools is to expose Estonian, Baltic, and Nordic graduate students in computer science (but also interested students from elsewhere) to research topics that are usually not covered within the regular curricula. 

This year's edition of the school featured four courses, each consisting of four hours of lectures and three hours of exercises. Renato Neves (University of Minho, Braga, Portugal) delivered a course on "Reasoning precisely about imprecisions (metric program equialence)". Matej Pavlović (Near One) gave a course on "Distributed consensus, state machine replication and Byzantine fault tolerance". Miklós Simonovits (Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics, Hungary) spoke about "Extremal graph theory and related areas". Finally, I contributed some lectures on "The equational logic of concurrent processes: Results and proof techniques".  

I thoroughly enjoyed taking part in this winter school. It was a great pleasure to learn from the other lecturers and to interact with the young researchers and students, including several BSc ones, who attended the event in a relaxed and idyllic setting. The organisation of the event was perfect and allowed all participants plenty of opportunities to discuss topics related to research, academic life and their studies with the lecturers and the organisers. We also had a lot of fun listening to the humorous presentations delivered at CRAPcon'26, including talks on pets in the wild, the Fibonacci properties of the broccolo romanesco, node equality in graphs, and reasons one should not enrich (in category theory and beyond). 

The organisers of the Estonian Winter School deserve the appreciation of the computer science community for their efforts over about 30 years. To my mind, events of this type have a huge positive influence on young computer scientists, some of whom then decide to pursue PhD studies and a research career. Organising the editions of the school for such a long period of time requires a lot of work and this type of contribution to the community is often not sufficiently recognised when evaluating an academic for positions or promotions. 

For the little that it might be worth, let me thank the organisers, the other lecturers and all the attendees for a lovely event, which rekindled a little, much-needed optimism in me in very troubled times. 

EATCS Distinguished Dissertation Award 2025 -- Call for Nominations

It's the time of the year for the standard call for nominations for EATCS Awards. Today, I am reposting the call for nominations for the EATCS Distinguished Dissertation Award 2025. See below and here for details. 

Do spread the news and encourage worthy candidates to submit their theses for this accolade!

-----------------------------

The EATCS establishes the Distinguished Dissertation Award to promote and
recognize outstanding dissertations in the field of Theoretical Computer
Science.

Any PhD dissertation in the field of Theoretical Computer Science that has been
successfully defended in 2025 is eligible.

Up to three dissertations will be selected by the committee for year 2025. The
dissertations will be evaluated on the basis of originality and potential impact
on their respective fields and on Theoretical Computer Science.

Each of the selected dissertations will receive a prize of 1000 Euro. The award
receiving dissertations will be published on the EATCS web site, where all the
EATCS Distinguished Dissertations will be collected.

The dissertation must be submitted by the author as an attachment to an email
message sent to the address dissertation-award@eatcs.org with subject EATCS
Distinguished Dissertation Award 2025 by February 28th, 2026 (CET). The deadline
is strict and late submissions will not be considered.

The body of the message must specify: Name and email address of the candidate;
Title of the dissertation; Department that has awarded the PhD and denomination
of the PhD program; Name and email address of the thesis supervisor; Date of the
successful defence of the thesis.

A five-page abstract of the dissertation and a letter by the thesis supervisor
certifying that the thesis has been successfully defended must also be included.
In addition, an endorsement letter from the thesis supervisor, and possibly one
more endorsement letter, must be sent by the endorsers as attachments to an
email message sent to the address dissertation-award@eatcs.org with subject
EATCS DDA 2025 endorsement. The name of the candidate should be clearly
specified in the message.

The dissertations will be selected by the following committee:

Standa Zivny (chair)
Petra Berenbrink
Loukas Georgiadis
Kasper Green Larsen
Emanuela Merelli

The award committee will solicit the opinion of members of the research
community as appropriate. Dissertations supervised by members of the selection
committee are not eligible. The EATCS is committed to equal opportunities, and
welcomes submissions of outstanding theses from all authors.

EATCS Fellows 2026 - Call for Nominations

The call for nominations for EATCS Fellows 2026 is out and I copy-paste it below. On behalf of my colleagues in the Fellow Selection Committee 2026, I strongly encourage EATCS members to submit strong nominations.

-----------------

EATCS Fellows 2026 - Call for Nominations

Deadline: Saturday, 28 February 2026

The EATCS Fellows Program is established by the Association to recognize outstanding EATCS Members for their scientific achievements in the field of Theoretical Computer Science. The Fellow status is conferred by the EATCS Fellows Selection Committee upon a person having a track record of intellectual and organizational leadership within the EATCS community. Fellows are expected to be "model citizens" of the TCS community, helping to develop the standing of TCS beyond the frontiers of the community. In particular, the program is committed to broad representation and especially encourages nominations from underrepresented groups and research fields.

In order to be considered by the EATCS Fellows Selection Committee, candidates must be nominated by at least four EATCS Members. Please verify your membership at http://www.eatcs.org/.

The EATCS Fellows Selection Committee 2026 consists of

Luca Aceto
Orna Kupferman  (chair)
Stefano Leonardi 
Paul Spirakis

INSTRUCTIONS: Proposals for Fellow consideration in 2026 must be submitted by Friday, 28 February 2026, by email to the EATCS Secretary -  secretary@eatcs.org. The subject line of the email should read "EATCS Fellow Nomination - < surname of candidate >".

Please note that all nominees and nominators must be EATCS members. A nomination should consist of details on the items below. It can be co-signed by several EATCS members. Two nomination letters per candidate are welcome. 

1. Name of candidate, candidate’s current affiliation and position, candidate’s email address.

2. Short summary of the candidate’s accomplishments (citation – 25 words or less).

3. The most important contributions that qualify the candidate for the rank of EATCS Fellow according to the following two categories: (3.1) Technical achievements, (3.2) Outstanding service to the TCS community. Please limit your description to at most three pages.

4. Nominator(s): Name(s) Affiliation(s), email (s), and relationship to the candidate.

2024 Award Winners announced by Computer Science Canada | Informatique Canada

Computer Science Canada | Informatique Canada has announced the list of recipients of its awards for 2024. 

Members of the TCS community will be pleased to see that Faith Ellen (University of Toronto) is one of the recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award 2024.  Congratulations Faith!

On a personal note, I am also delighted to see that Nicola Cotumaccio was selected for the Canadian Computer Science Distinguished Dissertation Award 2024 . Nicola's PhD thesis, entitled Data compression meets automata theory, was supervised by Travis Gagie (Dalhousie University), Nicola Prezza (Ca' Foscari University of Venice) and Catia Trubiani (Gran Sasso Science Institute), as part of a joint Gran Sasso Science Institute-Dalhousie University degree,  and was supported by a scholarship from Dante Labs. 

Nicola was also a co-recipient of the Best PhD thesis award of the Italian Chapter of the EATCS. 

To my mind, the best way to get a glimpse of the work Nicola presented in his award-winning doctoral dissertation is to read the short summary he published in the Bulletin of the EATCS. However, I strongly encourage anyone interested in TCS to have a look at the full dissertation or at the articles on which it is based, including one that was published in the JACM. 

Since February 2024, Nicola has been a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki. I look forward to seeing the developments in his academic career. 

PhD Position in Probabilistic Session Types at the IT University of Copenhagen

Marco Carbone has a PhD position at the IT University Copenhagen in the PROBABILIST project (PROBABILIstic Session Types), funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (DFF-FNU) starting in August or soon thereafter. The project is in cooperation with Nobuko Yoshida at the University of Oxford.

See here for details and encourage suitable students to apply for this exciting PhD position. Spread the news!

Answers to four teaching-related questions from Teaching Affairs at Reykjavik University

The Teaching Affairs Office at Reykjavik University is creating a video in which several faculty members answer some questions related to the principles that guide their pedagogical work. I am taking part in that enterprise and was asked to answer the four questions below. Here are the written versions of the answers I intended to give orally, as a note to myself and in case they are of interest to anyone. 

What would your answers to those questions be? 

Q1: What is your teaching philosophy? or What is your approach to teaching? 

My approach to teaching is eclectic. Overall, I try (and often fail, alas) to create a stimulating learning environment in cooperation with my students and teaching assistants, where anyone should feel safe to make mistakes and learn from them. 

I'll do anything to entice my students to engage actively with the material covered in my courses provided it is in reasonably good taste and conveys my enthusiasm for the subject I'm asked to teach. This includes the much-maligned lecture, since I firmly believe that telling a good story is still one of the best ways we have to inspire our students and to provide the context and intellectual history of the ideas we cover in our courses. However, I view lectures as arenas for a game of intellectual table tennis with the students, as "commedia dell'arte" performances in which we interact and learn from one another. 

Q2: Has your teaching philosophy changed? If so, how and why has it changed? 

At the beginning of my career, I focused too much on the content I thought I was expected to deliver during my courses. However, over the years, I have come to realise that less is more and that we should "distil and conquer". Today, students can access content from a huge variety of sources, but they can't typically get context and enthusiasm for the subject they are learning, which, to my mind, comes from the development of a good story as a course progresses. I also think that we should try to avoid being boring in our teaching. This is especially true when we teach the topics we love in theoretical computer science. Students find those topics exotic, hard and dry, whereas our subject has a long and extremely interesting intellectual heritage that every cultured person should know and that we could covey to our students as keen storytellers. See Scott Aaronson's book and his teaching statement, which I still find inspiring after all these years. 

Q3: How do you promote active learning in your teaching? 

I try to emphasise learning in every component of my teaching. Note that I wrote "learning" because I believe that all learning is an active process. 

Even when I lecture, I do my best to play intellectual table tennis with my students by asking them "why" and "what if" questions, and by encouraging them to think about the concepts we are covering in real time. Apart from using the Socratic method in my lecturing, I set students assignments so that they can deepen their understanding of the course material by practising the skills they have learnt. In several of my courses, I also give students a couple of open-ended group projects that are just beyond their current abilities, so that they can challenge themselves and engage in peer learning. 

The most extreme form of active learning I have used in my teaching is exemplified by an intensive three-week course I designed with Anna Ingolfsdottir and that I have taught each year in the period 2013-2023. After a brief introduction putting the material the students are going to learn and the work they are going to do in context, I give them material they should read and start experimenting with independently by the end of day one of the course. From day two of the course and over the following three weeks, I set students challenges that they tackle in groups at their own speed, acting as a facilitator in the classroom and introducing new course topics on a by-need basis. 

Every year, students rise to the challenge and do work which often goes beyond my expectations and of which they are proud. 

Q4: What have you found to be the most effective active learning strategy in your teaching context?

I don't believe that there is a "most effective active learning strategy". However, having worked at Aalborg University for a decade in a previous life, I have come to appreciate the Aalborg model for problem-based learning as an extremely beneficial strategy to foster creativity, critical thinking and the ability to learn independently in students. To my mind, Reykjavik University would stand to gain by embracing more aspects of problem-based learning in earnest. 

Call for papers - GandALF 2025

If you do research on any of the topics covered by GandALF, do consider submitting a paper to the conference and making the trip to Malta in mid-September!

Call for papers  - GandALF 2025

The Sixteenth International Symposium on Games, Automata, Logics, and Formal Verification 

will take place in Valletta, Malta, 15-18 September 2025.

Web page: https://gandalfsymposium.github.io/2025/

The aim of the symposium is to bring together researchers from

academia and industry who are actively working in the fields of

Games, Automata, Logics, and Formal Verification. The symposium covers

an ample spectrum of themes, ranging from theory to applications, and

encourages cross-fertilization. Papers focused on formal methods are

especially welcome. Authors are invited to submit original research or

tool papers on all relevant topics in these areas. Papers discussing

new ideas that are at an early stage of development are also welcome.

The topics covered by the conference include, but are not limited to,

the following:

Automata Theory

Automated Deduction

Computational aspects of Game Theory

Concurrency and Distributed Computation

Decision Procedures

Deductive, Compositional, and Abstraction Techniques for Verification

Finite Model Theory

First-order and Higher-order Logics

Formal Languages

Formal Methods for Systems Biology, Hybrid, Embedded, and Mobile Systems

Games and Automata for Verification

Game Semantics

Logical aspects of Computational Complexity

Logics of Programs

Modal and Temporal Logics

Model Checking

Models of Reactive and Real-Time Systems

Program Analysis and Software Verification

Run-time Verification and Testing

Specification and Verification of Finite and Infinite-state Systems Synthesis

## Proceedings:

The proceedings will be published by Electronic Proceedings in

Theoretical Computer Science. Authors of the best papers will be

invited to submit a revised version of their work to an special issue

of Acta Informatica. Selected papers from previous editions appeared

in special issues of the International Journal of Foundation of

Computer Science (GandALF 2010), Theoretical Computer Science (GandALF

2011 and 2012), and Information and Computation (GandALF 2013 and

2014).

## Invited Speakers:

- Radu Mardare (Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland)

- more TBA

## Submissions:

Submitted papers should not exceed fourteen (14) pages using EPTCS

format (please use the LaTeX style provided at https://style.eptcs.org),

be unpublished and contain original research. For papers reporting 

experimental results, authors are encouraged to make their data

available with their submission.

Submissions must be in PDF format and will be handled via

EasyChair Conference system at the following address:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=gandalf2025

## Important dates:

Paper submission deadline: 30 May 2025

Acceptance notification: 4 July 2025

Camera-ready deadline: 25 July 2025

## Program Committee:

Elli Anastasiadi (Aalborg University)

Giorgio Bacci (Aalborg University) co-Chair

Giovanni Bernardi (Université Paris Diderot - IRIF)

Udi Boker (Reichman Universtiy)

Laure Daviaud (University of East Anglia)

Mohammed Foughali (IRIF/Université Paris Cité)

Adrian Francalanza (University of Malta) co-Chair

Silvia Ghilezan (University of Novi Sad)

Daniele Gorla (University of Rome "La Sapienza")

Ryan Kavanagh (Université du Québec à Montréal)

Tim Lyon (Technische Universität Dresden)

Mohammad Reza Mousavi (King's College London)

Ocan Sankur (Mitsubishi Electric R&D Centre Europe)

Sarah Winkler (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano)

Sarah Winter (IRIF & Université Paris Cité)

... more to be announced

## Steering Committee:

Luca Aceto (Reykjavik University, Iceland)

Javier Esparza (University of Munich, Germany)

Salvatore La Torre (University of Salerno, Italy)

Angelo Montanari (University of Udine, Italy)

Mimmo Parente (University of Salerno, Italy)

Jean-François Raskin (Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium)

Martin Zimmermann (Aalborg University, Denmark)

What's your opinion on double-blind reviewing in TCS conferences?

Recent discussions with some colleagues spurred me to read again Ran Canetti's white paper on double-blind reviewing in IACR conferences. I also went back to a post by Boaz Barak and to its discussion thread, as well as to this post that motivated it. I was also reminded of the coverage of single- and double-blind reviewing in this chapter of the book "The Science of Science" (see, for instance, page 25 in that file). I recommend all those resources. 

FWIW, I share Ran Canetti's analysis of the pros and cons of double-blind reviewing. At the end of the day, evaluating scientific papers submitted to conferences and journals is largely a subjective exercise. IMHO, this is especially true for conferences where, apart from a number of clear accepts and clear rejects, a PC typically has to choose a small number of papers from a typically much larger pool of "scientifically equivalent" articles. 

Double-blind reviewing and rebuttals are two ways in which our community tries to make the process of selecting a good programme for a conference---which is, after all, the job description of a conference PC---more objective than it really is. However, I keep wondering whether those steps make a difference, especially in addressing bias, in an age where every scientific contribution should be available online in publicly accessible form before it is submitted to a conference. Shouldn't we simply trust the PC chairs of a conference to make sure that the refereeing process and the PC discussion are as thorough as possible, given the time constraints under which they take place? 

What's your opinion on double-blind reviewing as authors, PC members and PC chairs, especially in conferences in TCS, broadly construed? Do you prefer to submit to conferences that implement double-blind reviewing? If so, why?

I'd be grateful if you could post your opinions as comments to this post. 

ICE-TCS seminar by Benjamin Moore on "Smoothed analysis for graph isomorphism"

Today, the ICE-TCS seminar series at Reykjavik University hosted a talk by Benjamin Moore (Institute of Science and Technology Austria) who is visiting our postdoctoral researcher Nicolaos Matsakis. 

Benjamin presented the main results in his paper "Smoothed analysis for graph isomorphism", coauthored with his ISTA colleagues Michael Anastos and Matthew Kwan. (In passing, I just saw that Matthew Kwan received the main prize of the Austrian Mathematical Society last year. Congratulations!) 

To my mind, Benjamin did an excellent job in presenting the context for their exciting (but very technical) contribution and the main ideas that underlie it. Kudos! The work by Benjamin and his collaborators provides another explanation of the effectiveness of the colour refinement algorithm (also known as the one-dimensional Weisfeiler-Leman algorithm) in checking whether two graphs are isomorphic. I encourage you to read at least the introduction of their paper, which will be presented at STOC 2025, and the ISTA news article here, which does a much better job at putting their work in context than an interested, but ignorant, observer like me ever could. FWIW, I find results like theirs, which offer some explanation as to why theoretically hard problems are seemingly easy in practice, fascinating and I feel like that paper might be a strong candidate for a best paper award. 

It was also fitting to see recent work on smoothed analysis being presented at our seminar series since Daniel Spielman and Shang-Hua Teng received the 2008 Gödel Prize at ICALP 2008, which was held at Reykjavik University. Time flies, but great work is timeless. 

Interview with Magnús Már Halldórsson on Reykjavik University's website

Magnús Már Halldórsson, the director of ICE-TCS, was interviewed by the Communication Department at Reykjavik University to mark the 20th anniversary of ICE-TCS on April 29, 2025. The interview appeared last Friday on the Reykjavik University web site. In my biased opinion,  Magnús hit all the right notes. I hope that some of our students and colleagues, as well as the staff at Icelandic funding agencies and politicians, read it. 

I am also pleased to see theoretical computer science at the Department of Computer Science at Reykjavik University get some visibility on the university's website after twenty years. It leave the job of determining the level of contribution and the visibility ICE-TCS has given to the department and to computer science research in Iceland to others. 

In case anyone is interested in having a look at them, our annual reports from June 2007 till the whole of 2024 are available here. (Thanks to Tarmo Uustalu for reviving the centre's website and for keeping up to data!)

Dagstuhl Publishing – Highlights of 2024

On behalf of Dagstuhl Publishing, Michael Wagner has posted the highlights for 2024. IMHO, the computer-science research community owes the team at Dagstuhl Publishing and Schloss Dagstuhl a lot for its sustained support of research and open-access publication activities. I encourage any readers I might have to read the highlights for 2024 and share them within their networks. This is the least we can do to thank everyone at Dagsthul for their work. 

If you are a PC chair or an SC member of a high-quality conference that publishes its proceedings with a commercial publisher, and you care about open-access publication of research results and artefacts, consider suggesting that your conference apply for publishing its proceedings in LIPIcs. 

Last, but not least, consider submitting some of your best work to the journal Transaction on Graph Data and Knowledge, if it is in the areas covered by that diamond-open-access journal!

27th Estonian Winter School in Computer Science, EWSCS 2025 Viinistu, Estonia, 3-6 March 2025

I received the following announcement from my colleague Tarmo Uustalu. Spread the news of this excellent winter school for young researchers!

The 2025 edition of the Estonian Winter School in Computer Science (EWSCS) will be held in Viinistu, Estonia, in the period 3-6 March 2025. Editions of EWSCS are general TCS schools with topics from both Theory A and B. EWSCS is a long-running series; the first school happened in 1996 and this is its 27th edition. The schools are mostly intended for PhD students as well as ambitious MSc and BSc students, but are open for anyone.

This year's programme features the following four courses on combinatorics, modern database theory, concurrency connected to topology, and provable cybersecurity.

• Anders Claesson, University of Iceland, Reykjavik. Combinatorial species. 
• Uli Fahrenberg, EPITA Rennes. Discrete and continuous models for concurrent systems: from Petri nets to directed spaces. 
• Miika Hannula, University of Tartu. Conjunctive query evaluation. 
• Marino Miculan, University of Udine. Provable security, ProVerif.

Check the school webpage for abstracts and the timetable. 

Participation fee is 490 EUR. Covered in the fee are accommodation for three nights in twin rooms, with full board, and transportation from Tallinn to the school venue and back.

Application deadline: 12 Feb 2025.

Faculty positions in Computer Science at Reykjavik University

The Department of Computer Science at Reykjavik University invites applications for full-time, permanent faculty positions at any rank, in particular in the fields of data science, software engineering, theoretical computer science (see the ICE-TCS web page for information on our TCS group), as well as visual computing, games, and interactive media.

The deadline for applications is January 30, 2025. The review of the applications will begin in early January 2025 and will continue until the positions are filled.

See https://jobs.50skills.com/ru/is/32303 for details on how to apply.

Nicola Cotumaccio receives Best Italian PhD Thesis Award in Theoretical Computer Science

At this time of the year, the Italian Chapter of the EATCS announces its awards. See here for the full list for 2024 and previous years. 

I am delighted to see that the selection committee for the Best Italian PhD Theses in Theoretical Computer Science 2024 has selected Nicola Cotumaccio (Gran Sasso Science Institute) for that award for his thesis "Data Compression Meets Automata Theory", which was supervised by Nicola Prezza, Travis Gagie and Catia Trubiani. Nicola received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in January 2024, as part of a joint agreement between the Gran Sasso Science Institute (Italy) and Dalhousie University (Canada). From February 2024, he is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki in
Finland. His research can be placed in the interconnection between formal methods and algorithms, where he develops innovative techniques mainly in the fields of data compression and automata theory.

Nicola's thesis work introduces a new paradigm in graph compression and formal language theory, using some of the most important data structures for compressing and indexing strings, such as the suffix array, the Burrows-Wheeler Transform and the FM-index. Not only does the proposed paradigm provide a new approach to studying classic problems on finite automata and regular languages, but it also retrospectively explains the impact of the aforementioned data structures. I find it both refreshing and amazing that Nicola and his collaborators have been able to shed some new light on time-honoured constructions on automata, such as the subset construction, via the paradigm presented in his thesis. See, for instance, their JACM paper. 

I am also thrilled to see that Nicola shared the award with Francesca Randone (IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca), who is recognised for her thesis "Efficient and Accurate Analysis of Two Classes of Transparent Generative Models", supervised by Mirco Tribastone and Luca Bortolussi.

I wish Francesca and Nicola good luck for their future careers!

Accepted papers for GandALF 2024 and SLSS 2024

The list of papers that were selected for presentation at GandALF 2024 is available at https://scool24.github.io/GandALF/ I am looking forward to listening to the presentations based on those articles and to the four invited talks by Bernd Finkbeiner (CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security), Kim Guldstrand Larsen (Aalborg University), Brigitte Pientka (McGill University) and Azalea Raad (Imperial College London). 

On behalf of the GandALF SC, I thank the GandALF 2024 PC co-chairs, Antonis Achilleos and Adrian Francalanza, and their PC for the efficient PC work. 

 In case you missed it, the list of selected contributions and invited talks at the co-located Twelfth Scandinavian Logic Symposium (SLSS 2024) is at https://scool24.github.io/SLSS/. SLSS will be held on 14-16 June and GandALF on 19-21 June. As part of the Reykjavik Summer of Cool Logic 2024 (SCooL 2024), we will also host the Fifth Nordic Logic Summer School (NLS 2024) on 10-13 June. 

Thanks to all my colleagues at ICE-TCS, Department of Computer Science at Reykjavik University, who are working very hard on the organisation of these three events back to back. 

I hope to see a good participation at those events.

Call for expressions of interest for open-rank positions at the Gran Sasso Science Institute

I hope that this call for expressions of interest for faculty positions in Computer Science at the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) will entice some of the readers of this blog to "express interest", possibly for a direct call. 

In my, admittedly biased, opinion, the GSSI and its Computer Science group offer motivated academics an excellent environment to achieve their career goals and carry out the best work of which they are capable. L'Aquila and the Abruzzo region offer a good quality of life, as well as excellent food and wine. 

Spread the news!

Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) - Computer Science Area

National Department of Excellence in Computer Science and Mathematics

Call for expressions of interest for open-rank positions at GSSI

The Computer Science Group at the GSSI (top ranked computer science department in Italy in 2022 and national department of excellence) invites expressions of interest for open-rank positions in computer science (Open Rank: Tenured Full Professorship or Assistant Professorship with Tenure Track). Moreover, it invites expressions of interest for direct calls of researchers (at all levels). This is a form of direct recruitment that does not include calls from individual universities, but it is a nominative proposal that the university sends directly to the Ministry (Law 230/2005, Art. 1, paragraph 9). A researcher is eligible for a direct call if they meet either of the following two criteria: 

• They have been permanently engaged in research or teaching activities outside Italy for at least three years, holding an equivalent academic position in a university or a research institution abroad. The call requires the approval of the National Scientific Qualification Commission (ASN).
• They have been qualified for specific high-qualification research projects, funded by the European Union or by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) and identified with a specific decree, after a positive opinion from ANVUR and CUN. For calls made within three years of winning the research project, approval of the National Scientific Qualification Commission (ASN) is not required.

The main research areas of the Computer Science area are Algorithms, Formal Methods, and Software Engineering. Research in Algorithms at GSSI focuses on computational problems arising in networks and multi-agent systems. The research of the Formal Methods group centres on the study of complex reactive systems and spans a broad range of topics that include languages, semantic models, and software verification. The research of the Software Engineering group is mainly concerned with the systematic application of engineering approaches to the development of software for autonomous and smart systems. More details are available on the website: http://cs.gssi.it.

Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI)

Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI - http://www.gssi.it) is an International centre of excellence for advanced studies and PhD school established in L'Aquila (Italy). 

Despite being founded only in 2012 and stabilized in 2016, after a three-year successful experimental period, the institute has already obtained wide recognition at both national and international levels. 

The PhD program at GSSI is organized in the scientific areas of Astroparticle Physics, Computer Science, Mathematics, Regional Sciences and Economic Geography. Every year, the institute offers PhD scholarships and postdoctoral grants as well as research internship opportunities, thus facilitating the attraction of prestigious scientists in the field of Computer Science.

In 2022, GSSI participated for the first time in the Ministry of University and Research call of ANVUR (Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes - https://www.anvur.it/en/agency/mission/) to evaluate universities in Italy. 

In this first participation, the computer science area has been evaluated as the first computer science department in Italy. This recognition gave the computer science area the opportunity to participate in a further call for funding, and together with the mathematics area, was recognized as one of the "Departments of Excellence", obtaining more than 7 million Euros in additional funding. Besides its prestige, this recognition will bring additional permanent positions and significant funds (over one million Euros) for building autonomous systems, IoT, and algorithm-engineering laboratories.

Moreover, the GSSI project was ranked  first in the specific disciplinary sector (https://www.anvur.it/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/ALLEGATO-NOTA-ANVUR_esito-180.pdf) among the 11 departments of excellence in computer science and mathematics, with only three of them (including GSSI) concerning Computer Science. The first place is shared with the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and the University of Pisa, two prestigious Italian institutions. 

Working at GSSI

GSSI is the perfect place both for experienced academics and for young researchers who aim to establish and consolidate their group and become principal investigators (PIs). Indeed, these are the main strengths of GSSI as a working environment: 

• Freedom in selecting research topics and activities.
• Entry package aiming at helping newcomers to develop their own research;  ideal conditions to perform excellent research; availability of open PhD positions and of funding to purchase research resources; access to research laboratories (see below); a collegial environment welcoming newcomers to joint ongoing research projects; space to host a research group; funding for travelling and inviting researchers.
• Low teaching duties, involving solely teaching PhD-level courses and supervising PhD students.
• Laboratories: Autonomous Systems (service robots and vehicles), IoT, Algorithm Engineering, High-Performance Computing (HPC).
• Young, friendly, non-hierarchical, vibrant, and International environment.
• Excellent place to perform interdisciplinary research, e.g., with the other areas of GSSI, in the context of existing or new projects.
• Located in a cosy and medium-size city in the centre of Italy, a city of science hosting also the University of L’Aquila (https://www.univaq.it) and the INFN (https://www.lngs.infn.it/en/lngs-overview), Gran Sasso Tech (a joint venture between GSSI and Thales Alenia Space - https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwide/space/press_release/gran-sasso-tech-foundation-born), high-technology companies (such as Thales Alenia Space, Leonardo, Sanofi, IZS), good food, great nature, mountains, lakes, seaside at around 80 km, Rome at less than 100 Km, etc. The quality of life in L’Aquila is pretty high and there is also an international Lyceum.

Call for Expression of Interest

We are looking for candidates with an excellent publication record, an internationally visible research profile, a clear potential to promote and lead research activities, and a specific interest in teaching skilled and internationally recruited students at the postgraduate level.

Applications Applicants should submit their expression of interest by sending:

• a specification of the level of appointment in which the candidate is interested (i.e., Tenured Full Professorship, Tenured Associate Professorship, Assistant Professorship with Tenure Track, Direct call)
• a motivation letter,
• a curriculum vitae,
• a list of selected publications (at least 5 and no more than 12 publications) with links from which they can be downloaded, and
• a brief research statement.

Applications (and questions regarding the application process) must be submitted in electronic form, preferably by 10 May 2024, to eoi-cs@gssi.it.

GSSI is committed to gender balance, inclusion and diversity. All expressions of interest will be given proper consideration, independent of ethnicity, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.

Disclaimer: Please note that this is not a job advertisement. Based on the received expressions of interest, the Gran Sasso Science Institute will decide whether to open an official call and which selection procedure to follow.

Additional information

Duties: Teaching PhD courses, leading internal seminars and tutoring PhD students. All activities are in English.

Salary: The salary will be determined on a personal basis, also taking into account past positions covered abroad. Professors who have held a tenured position outside Italy for more than three years (at the corresponding level) might be eligible for a partial recognition of past services, depending on specific legal constraints.

Moreover, successful candidates might benefit from important and multiannual tax incentives for attracting human capital to Italy: https://www.agenziaentrate.gov.it/portale/web/english/nse/individuals/tax-incentives-for-attracting-human-capital-in-italy 

For informal enquiries, please contact the Head of the Computer Science area at patrizio.pelliccione@gssi.it