Postdoc position at Nijmegen (ROBIN project on OS verification)

[Erik Poll]

(Apologies for multiple copies)

The SoS (Security of Systems) group at the Radboud University of
Nijmegen in the Netherlands has a vacancy for a postdoc for a 2-year
period starting February 1 2006.

The vacancy is in the EU project ROBIN (Robust Open Infrastructure),
which is a joint project in collaboration with TU Dresden (more
specifically Hermann Härtig's operating systems group), ST Micro
Electronics and Secunet.

The goal of the ROBIN project is to develop a robust platform (Operating
System kernel) that can host legacy operating systems and their
applications, but that is small enough (in the order of 50-100k lines of
code) to apply rigorous formal analysis and construction techniques. The
kernel of the robust platform will be written in C++ (with very small
parts in assembly).

The work in Nijmegen concentrates on the formal specification and
verification of key security properties of the kernel.  The objectives
are to develop, evaluate and assess tool-supported formal methods for
the specification and verification of low level systems code, especially
operating-system kernel source-code.  The aim is not a full verification
of the kernel, but rather to show a perspective of what can be achieved
with formal methods.  A starting point for this work is the VFiasco
project at TU Dresden.

We are looking for candidates with a recent PhD in Computing Science, a
strong background in formal methods, and an interest in applying formal
methods to low-level system programs, such as operating system kernels.
Experience with (interactive) theorem provers, program verification, or
static analysis is a pré, as is an interest in security.

You'll be collaborating with a second postdoc working on this project in
Nijmegen for two years, Hendrik Tews, who'll be joining the SoS group
starting February 2006.

Pre-tax salary starts at 2625,- euro per month, but can be more
depending on experience.

For more info, contact Erik Poll <erikpoll at cs.ru.nl> or Hendrik Tews
<tews at tcs.inf.tu-dresden.de>. The ROBIN project proposal is available on
request from either Erik or Hendrik.

You can apply by sending a letter of motivation and a detailed cv
(preferably in PDF format) and contact details of at least two
references to Erik Poll <erikpoll at cs.ru.nl> by January 2, 2006.

Relevant links:
- SoS group at Nijmegen: http://www.cs.ru.nl/sos
- VFiasco project at Dresden: http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/vfiasco/