Postdoctoral position in protocol testing

The Department of Information Technology holds a leading position in both research and education at all levels. We are currently Uppsala University's third largest department, have around 350 employees, including 120 teachers and 120 PhD students. Approximately 5,000 undergraduate students take one or more courses at the department each year. You can find more information about us on the Department of Information Technology website.

Duties
Research, publication, advising, and possibly teaching. 

Research area
The candidate will perform research to develop techniques for security testing of network protocol implementations. Relevant techniques include, but are not limited to, protocol testing, model learning, fuzzing, symbolic execution, taint analysis, program analysis, and formal verification. The goals include to significantly extend the power and scalability of automated protocol testing techniques to make the applicable to real-world implementations; foreseen applications include implementations of security protocols and other stateful software systems.  

Environment
The position is funded by the Swedish Science Council (VR) through the project “Effective Security Testing of Network Protocol Implementations” (PI Kostis Sagonas). The research environment brings together several researchers at Uppsala University (Parosh Abdulla, Mohammed Faouzi Atig, Bengt Jonsson, Kostis Sagonas, and Wang Yi) that are world-renowned in the fields of automated verification, programming language implementation, and testing.  Recent contributions of the group in the area of the position include techniques for protocol state fuzzing and model learning and tools such as DTLS-Fuzzer and SMBugFinder.  Other tools developed by members of the group include the UPPAAL model checker, high-impact techniques and tools for testing and verification of multi-threaded software (Concuerror and Nidhugg), and several testing and static analysis tools for the Erlang programming language (Dialyzer and PropEr). Past related efforts include the project “aSSIsT: Secure Software for the Internet of Things” (https://assist-project.github.io/) where more information about recent work in the area of the position can be found.

Requirements
PhD degree in Computer Science or Compute Engineering or a foreign degree equivalent to a PhD degree in Computer Science or Compute Engineering. The degree needs to be obtained by the time of the decision of employment. Those who have obtained a PhD degree three years prior to the application deadline are primarily considered for the employment. The starting point of the three-year frame period is the application deadline. Due to special circumstances, the degree may have been obtained earlier. The three-year period can be extended due to circumstances such as sick leave, parental leave, duties in labour unions, etc.

Excellent skills in spoken and written English are required.

Application
Applications should include a description of research interests and past experience, including a motivation for applying for this position, a CV, copies of exams, degrees and grades, a copy of Ph.D. thesis (or a draft thereof), relevant publications, and other relevant documents.  Applications should be accompanied by at least two letter(s) of recommendation or contact information to reference persons, as well as earliest feasible starting date of employment.

About the employment
The employment is a temporary position of two years according to central collective agreement. Full time position. Starting date September/October 2025 or as agreed. Placement: Uppsala

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

Please submit your application by 10 July 2025, UFV-PA 2025/1694.

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