ACM TechTalk with Ina Schaefer

Register for the TechTalk, “Correctness-by-Construction: How Can We Build Better Software?” with Ina Schaefer, on May 31, 2023, 12:00 pm ET (4 pm UTC). Schaefer is a Full Professor of Software Engineering at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. Her main research interests are in the intersection of software engineering and formal methods, particularly focusing on correctness-by-construction development and quality assurance for software-intensive and variant-rich systems. In her talk, she will discuss Correctness-by-Construction (CbC—an incremental software development technique to create functionally correct programs guided by a specification)—an overview of her work on CbC in four different lines of research, including developing configurable as well as safety- and security-critical software systems, and more.

Visit the TechTalks Archive for our full archive of past TechTalks.

Featured ACM Member: Yael Tauman Kalai

Yael Tauman Kalai is a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and an Adjunct Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her main research interests are cryptography, the Theory of Computation, and security and privacy. She recently received the 2022 ACM Prize in Computing for breakthroughs in verifiable delegation of computation and fundamental contributions to cryptography. Kalai is especially known for her work in verifiable delegation of computation, where she has developed succinct proofs that certify the correctness of any computation. In her interview, Kalai discusses the goals of working on the mathematical foundations of cryptography, the problem of obfuscation, and more.

Read Kalai’s interview here.

Featured ACM Member: Margo Seltzer

Margo Seltzer is the Canada 150 Research Chair and the Cheriton Family Chair in Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She was recently named the 2023-2024 ACM Athena Lecturer for foundational research in file and storage systems, pioneering research in data provenance, impactful software contributions in Berkeley DB, and tireless dedication to service and mentoring. In her interview, Seltzer discusses her work on Berkeley DB and the challenges she faced in development, how machine learning is improving systems, the ways her teaching style has changed over the years, and more.

Read Seltzer’s interview here.

ACM ByteCast Interviews Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman 

ACM ByteCast is ACM’s series of podcast interviews with researchers, practitioners, and innovators who are at the intersection of computing research and practice. In this episode of ACM ByteCast, Rashmi Mohan hosts 2015 ACM A.M. Turing Award laureates Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman. As joint creators of the Diffie-Hellman key exchange, they introduced the world to the transformative idea of public key cryptography, the underpinning of every secure transaction on the internet today. 

Whitfield and Martin share their individual journeys to computer science and cryptography—which were shaped both by personal interests and the geopolitical realities of the time—and describe how they met and developed a rapport with each other as researchers. They share their “aha moment” in public key cryptography, how the internet catapulted commercial cryptography in the 1990s, and their thoughts on computing privacy, national security, quantum computing, and more. And along the way, they share colorful details from their early years and share advice for young people aspiring to get into computing.

Listen here or wherever you get podcasts.

Featured ACM Distinguished Speaker: Corina Sas

Corina Sas is Professor in Human-Computer Interaction with the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University, UK. Her research focuses on designing and evaluating technologies for wellbeing, mental health, memory support, creative and reflective thinking in design, as well as novel tools for designing such technologies. Her work explores and integrates wearable bio sensors, mobile and lifelogging technologies with the aim to shape the interaction design and user experience. Her lectures include “Ethical Design for Wellbeing and Affective Health,” “Reflecting on the Value of Food for Human-Food Interaction Research,” and more. She is available to speak through the ACM Distinguished Speaker Program.

For more information about Sas, please visit her DSP speaker information page.