Two 3-year Research Assistants - PLanCompS project - Swansea

Two 3-year Research Assistant Posts

PLanCompS: Programming Language Components and Specifications

Department of Computer Science, Swansea University

Salary scale: £26,629 to £29,972 per annum.

Closing date: 09 Jun 2011

Description:

These two posts will support the EPSRC joint research project PLanCompS: Programming Language Components and Specifications. The Swansea team led by Professor Mosses at the Department of Computer Science, Swansea University will be working with teams from Royal Holloway, University of London and City University London; Microsoft Research Cambridge is a project partner. The Department of Computer Science at Swansea University has a strong and long-established record in the area of fundamentals of computing.

The project will develop and test a novel component-based framework for design, specification and implementation of programming languages. It includes:

• specification of a collection of highly reusable language components called funcons (fundamental constructs);
• translation of major general-purpose programming languages (C#, Java, F#) and domain-specific languages to funcons;
• validation of funcon and language specifications by testing generated prototype implementations;
• design and implementation of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for component-based specification; and 
• creation of a digital library of language specifications. 

See the preliminary project page at www.plancomps.org for a more detailed overview.

The posts provide an excellent opportunity for researchers interested in the formal specification and implementation of programming languages, and in the tools needed to support practical language development based on formal semantics. They would particularly suit candidates with a background in theoretical computer science who are interested in practical applications; a further post based at Royal Holloway focussing on the IDE, frontend and backend tooling is expected to be advertised shortly.

Candidates for the posts at Swansea are required to have a first degree in Computer Science (or a closely related subject), to have actively engaged in and contributed to writing and publishing research papers, to be able to understand and specify formal semantics of programming languages, and to be able to program in C# or Java as well as in a functional or logic programming language. Candidates who already have (or will soon complete) a PhD in Computer Science (or a closely related subject) will be preferred.

It is anticipated that interviews will be held on Thursday 23 June 2011.

Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Peter Mosses at [email protected].

For details of how to apply, see the vacancy announcement at www.swansea.ac.uk/personnel/vacancies/research/posttitle,58343,en.php

The PLanCompS project is currently recruiting also PhD students; see www.plancomps.org for links to the announcements.