Programming Languages

Research in Programming Languages and Systems at Imperial spans foundational issues in language semantics right through to the design and implementation of new languages, including compilers and domain-specific techniques to achieve performance, parallelism and correctness.

Key areas include: programming language semantics and type systems, including type systems for concurrent, distributed and parallel computing, and semantics for web programming languages; new programming models and domain-specific languages for emerging application areas; domain-specific code generation and optimization; runtime systems and operating system support for concurrency, parallelism and energy efficiency; program analysis techniques for improving the reliability and security of software at various levels of abstraction, from systems software through to web applications; techniques and tools for rigorous testing of programming language implementations; and techniques and tools for reasoning about concurrency and parallelism in modern programming languages.

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Research groups and centres

Groups

 

Centres

Academics

Academics

  • Dr Cristian Cadar

    Dr Cristian Cadar

    Personal details

    Dr Cristian Cadar Professor in Software Reliability

    +44 (0)20 7594 8244

    Research interests

    Software engineering, computer systems, software security, practical techniques for improving software reliability and security.

    Location

    435, Huxley Building

  • Prof Alastair Donaldson

    Dr Alastair Donaldson

    Personal details

    Prof Alastair Donaldson Professor

    +44 (0)20 7594 8266

    Research interests

    Formal verification for multicore software, software performance optimization.

    Location

    422, Huxley Building

  • Prof. Sophia Drossopoulou

    Prof. Sophia Drossopoulou

    Personal details

    Prof. Sophia Drossopoulou Professor of Programming Languages

    +44 (0)20 7594 8368

    Research interests

    Concurrent programming, program verification, characterization of program evolution, theorem proving.

    Location

    559, Huxley Building

  • Prof. Susan Eisenbach

    Prof. Susan Eisenbach

    Personal details

    Prof. Susan Eisenbach Emeritus Professor

    +44 (0)20 7594 8264

    Research interests

    Programming Languages, Concurrency and Testing.

    Location

    569, Huxley Building

  • Dr Tony Field

    Dr Tony Field

    Personal details

    Dr Tony Field Reader in Performance Engineering

    +44 (0)20 7594 8364

    Research interests

    Functional programming, engineering for high performance, simulation.

    Location

    354, Huxley Building

  • Dr Antonio Filieri

    Dr Antonio Filieri

    Personal details

    Dr Antonio Filieri Senior Lecturer

    +44 (0)20 7594 9478

    Research interests

    Probabilistic software analysis, probabilistic programming, control theory for software engineering, runtime and incremental verification, quantitative and functional software properties.

    Location

    572, Huxley Building

  • Prof. Philippa Gardner

    Prof. Philippa Gardner

    Personal details

    Prof. Philippa Gardner Professor of Theoretical Computer Science

    +44 (0)20 7594 8292

    Research interests

    Programming languages, program analysis and verification, concurrency and resource reasoning.

    Location

    453, Huxley Building

  • Prof. Chris Hankin

    Prof. Chris Hankin

    Personal details

    Prof. Chris Hankin Security Science Fellow, Institute for Security Science and Technology

    +44 (0)20 7594 7619

    Research interests

    Security, Program Analysis and  Programming Language Theory.

    Location

    Sherfield Building

  • Prof. Paul Kelly

    Prof. Paul Kelly

    Personal details

    Prof. Paul Kelly Professor of Software Technology

    +44 (0)20 7594 8332

    Research interests

    Programming languages, compilers, parallel computing, domain-specific tools and libraries, performance issues, irregular and data intensive applications, performance evaluation, modelling, and prediction.

    Location

    L3 (upstairs), William Penney Building
    304, Huxley Building

  • Dr Ben Livshits

    Dr Ben Livshits

    Personal details

    Dr Ben Livshits Reader

    Research interests

    Security, privacy, program analysis, compilers, software engineering and crowd-sourcing.

    Location

    569, Huxley Building

  • Prof. Wayne Luk

    Prof. Wayne Luk

    Personal details

    Prof. Wayne Luk Professor of Computer Engineering

    +44 (0)20 7594 8313

    Research interests

    Hardware and architecture, reconfigurable computing, design automation.

    Location

    434, Huxley Building

  • Dr Sergio Maffeis

    Dr Sergio Maffeis

    Personal details

    Dr Sergio Maffeis Senior Lecturer

    +44 (0)20 7594 8390

    Research interests

    Software security; network and web security; applications of machine learning to security; security of machine learning; formal methods.

    Location

    441, Huxley Building

  • Dr. Azalea Raad

    Dr. Azalea Raad

    Personal details

    Dr. Azalea Raad Lecturer

    Location

    Huxley Building

  • Dr Herbert Wiklicky

    Dr Herbert Wiklicky

    Personal details

    Dr Herbert Wiklicky Reader in Computer Science

    +44 (0)20 7594 8206

    Research interests

    Program analysis, programming languages, semantics, probabilistic models, program synthesis, semantics in computer security, quantum computation.

    Location

    424, Huxley Building

  • Dr. Nicolas Wu

    Dr. Nicolas Wu

    Personal details

    Dr. Nicolas Wu Senior Lecturer

    +44 (0)20 7594 8189

    Research interests

    Dr. Wu's research interests are centred around programming languages, where he has made advances in applications of category theory for giving the semantics of programs and algorithms. In particular, his recent work has been focused on showing the connections between domain specific languages, algebraic effect handlers, and structured recursion schemes.

    Location

    374, Huxley Building