PhD position on software security - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

The Department of Information Technology has a leading position in research and education. The Department currently has about 280 employees, including 120 teachers and 110 PhD students. More than 4000 students study one or more courses at the department each year. More info: http://www.it.uu.se

Duties/Project description: The topic for the position is the development of techniques for detecting and removing security vulnerabilities in software. Techniques for ensuring that software is free of bugs and vulnerabilities are of utmost importance, since software vulnerabilities can often be exploited to cause huge damage. Techniques in the scope of the project include program analysis, verification, symbolic execution, testing, fuzzing, taint analysis, and model learning, supported by constraint solving and SMT.  The goals include to significantly extend the power and scalability of such techniques to make them applicable to real-world code bases; foreseen applications include software for IoT systems.

Environment: The position is funded by a five-year grant aSSIsT: Secure Software for the Internet of Things (https://assist-project.github.io/), supported by SSF (the Foundation for Strategic Research), which brings together several groups at Uppsala University (Bengt Jonsson, Parosh Abdulla, Mohammed Faouzi Atig, Philipp Ruemmer, Kostis Sagonas, Wang Yi) that are world-renowned in the fields of automated verification, programming language implementation, and testing.  Contributions include the UPPAAL model checker, high-impact techniques and tools for testing and verification of multithreaded software, including Concuerror and Nidhugg, and several tools for the Erlang programming language. Members received the CAV (Computer-Aided Verification) Award, the most prestigious academic award in the area, both in 2013 (Wang Yi) and in 2017 (Parosh Abdulla and Bengt Jonsson).  The work is performed in collaboration with partners at RISE SICS (Luca Mottola, Shahid Raza, Thiemo Voigt) including developers of the ConTiki OS, and the SICS Security lab.

The position is for a maximum of five years and includes departmental duties at a level of at most 20% (typically teaching) as well as taking graduate courses. The candidate will be expected to teach in English or Swedish.

Requirements: The candidate should have a Master of Science in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent, in a field which is relevant for the work. We expect the candidate to be fluent in verbal and written English.

Additional qualifications: It is helpful to have a good background in some of the fields of testing, program analysis, compiler techniques, model checking, formal verification, software engineering, and similar, as well as to be proficient in implementing non-trivial algorithms.

How to apply: The application should include a statement of purpose, motivating preferred research directions. The application should further include a description of past experience, a CV, copies of exams, degrees and grades, a copy of Master thesis (or a draft thereof), relevant publications, and other relevant documents. The candidates should indicate the earliest feasible starting date of employment and are encouraged to provide letter(s) of recommendation and contact information to reference persons.

Rules governing PhD students are set out in the Higher Education Ordinance chapter 5, §§ 1-7 and in Uppsala University's rules and guidelines http://regler.uu.se/?languageId=1.

Uppsala University strives to be an inclusive workplace that promotes equal opportunities and attracts qualified candidates who can contribute to the University’s excellence and diversity. We welcome applications from all sections of the community and from people of all backgrounds.

Salary: According to local agreement for PhD students.

Starting date: September 1st, or as otherwise agreed.

Type of employment: Temporary position according to the Higher Education Ordinance chapter 5 § 7.

Scope of employment: 100 %

For further information about the position please contact: Bengt Jonsson (bengt.jonsson@it.uu.se).

Please submit your application by March 25, 2020, UFV-PA 2020/529.

Are you considering moving to Sweden to work at Uppsala University? If so, you will find a lot of information about working and living in Sweden at http://www.uu.se/joinus. You are also welcome to contact International Faculty and Staff Services at ifss@uadm.uu.se.