Timothy Bourke

Biography

PC member of EMSOFT (2015, 2016, 2017), JFLA 2018, RTAS 2016, SCOPES 2017, and Modelica (2015, 2017). Member of the Student Research Competition (SRC) panel for PLDI 2017. Journal reviewing: ACM Trans. on Embedded Computing Systems (2013, 2016), IEEE Embedded Systems Letters (2016), J. Logic and Computation (2013), Real-Time Systems (2012, 2013, 2014), IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering (2016), and Theoretical Computer Science (2010, 2012). Conference reviewing: ACSC (2010), ACSD (2013), ASP-DAC (2006), CONCUR (2013), CPP (2012), DAC (2014, 2015), DATE (2011, 2012, 2013, 2015), FASE (2015), FORMATS (2009, 2010), JFLA (2015), NFM (2015), POPL (2012), RTSS (2010), WPDRTS (2006, 2007).

Research Interest

My research focuses on rigorous approaches to modelling, programming, and verifying embedded control systems. My motivation is not formal techniques as an end in themselves, but rather as a means to clarify the principles behind and to better engineer embedded systems. I always try to work with practical examples, like the control system of a robotic wheelchair (a long time ago), an infrared sensor, a microkernel operating system (as part of a large group), a microprinter component, or a wireless routing protocol. Focusing on practice means working with programming languages that can be compiled and executed. Rigour mandates languages based on precise and tractable models (like synchronous languages). Finally, modelling and analyzing realistic programming languages, their compilers, and the applications created with them requires computer assistance; ideally interactive theorem provers.