Dr. Lingming Zhang is looking for self-motivated PhD students with strong academic background in Software Engineering, Machine Learning, Programming Languages, or Formal Methods. Potential research projects include, but are not limited to: automated program transformation/repair/synthesis, system failure diagnosis, JVM-based runtime optimization/verification, as well as the synergy between SE and AI. Please include a copy of your detailed CV/Resume (with your prior research experience) in your email. Meanwhile, make sure that you apply to Illinois CS (with your "Faculty Interest") by Dec. 15th!
Why Illinois CS: Illinois CS is ranked No. 5 within the nation according to U.S. News & World Report and No. 2 according to csrankings.org. Illinois CS history is, in part, the history of computing. From the ILLIAC to Blue Waters, OpenMP to MPI, Mosaic to YouTube, and the first vectorizing compilers to LLVM, Illinois CS faculty, students, and alumni have long been at the forefront of computing research and innovation. The Programming Languages, Formal Methods, and Software Engineering Group at Illinois CS is also a top program in the world. For example, our Software Engineering research area is ranked No. 1 within the nation according to csrankings.org (in terms of research papers in all the 4 top-tier Software Engineering conferences, such as ICSE, FSE, ISSTA, and ASE, as of Feb. 2021). Depending on the student's research interests and expertise, co-advising by two faculty members is quite common and flexible at Illinois CS. Such a collaborative environment has been shown to be quite important and beneficial for training our PhD students. For example, in 2019 alone, over 10 Illinois CS PhD graduates obtained tenure-track faculty positions from various places, including MIT, CMU, Cornell, Georgia Tech, and UCSD.