Doctoral fellow

ABOUT GHENT UNIVERSITY

Ghent University is a world of its own. Employing more than 15.000 people, it is actively involved in education and research, management and administration, as well as technical and social service provision on a daily basis. It is one of the largest, most exciting employers in the area and offers great career opportunities.

With its 11 faculties and more than 85 departments offering state-of-the-art study programmes grounded in research in a wide range of academic fields, Ghent University is a logical choice for its staff and students.

Within the faculty of Engineering and Architecture, the Computing Systems Lab (CSL) is search of more powerful, but less power-hungry, and more secure computers. The lab studies and develops novel design methodologies for both individual processors and whole computing systems, more efficient run-time resource management techniques and tools, innovative processor and accelerator architectures, solutions that use available resources much more efficiently and effectively, adaptable hardware solutions for embedded systems new security solutions and software protections, as well as tools and techniques to automate their deployment. CSL staff counts 5 professors, 2 postdoc researchers, and about 20 PhD students. The research for these PhD positions will be conducted in the System Software team, headed by prof. Bjorn De Sutter (https://users.elis.ugent.be/~brdsutte/).

YOUR TASKS

• We are looking for a PhD student in the topic of software and systems security, in particular for techniques to find, mitigate, and fix bugs and vulnerabilities in code written in C/C++/Rust. Many existing tools and techniques for finding vulnerabilities in (large) C/C++/Rust code bases require that developers enter domain-specific knowledge (such as which functions are unsafe, which function return values should be checked, etc.), or they are too slow & memory-intensive to be used by developers on their own machine during development. In this research, you will research techniques that do not require domain-specific knowledge and that do scale to be usable during development.
• For this research, you conduct strategic basic research into the following topics based on your expertise and preferences, and in agreement with your supervisor: (i) techniques to find bugs in C/C++/Rust code bases, not based on hard-coded rules, but from learning rules from the code base under test; (ii) automatically fixing bugs in C/C++/Rust code bases; (iii) improving existing static analyses for C/C++/Rust code bases by making them scalable to (very) large code bases.
• You will help in translating your own and related academic research results into more mature knowledge and capabilities such that they can more easily be adapted by industry.
• You will collaborate with colleagues working on related topics in the software and systems security domain, e.g., to share common infrastructure and datasets.
• You publish and present results both at international conferences and in scientific journals, using open science practices.
• This research will lead to a PhD degree. Throughout the complete PhD period, you receive a full-time, attractive salary.
• You assist in limited educational tasks of the research group, namely being a teaching assistant for one one-semester course.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

• Candidates have a Master of Science in Computer Science, Computer Science Engineering, or equivalent.
• You are interested to do research in an academic environment for a 4 years period view of a PhD degree.
• You are proficient technically and have an affinity with (systems) programming, operating systems, and compilers.
• Knowledge of C/C++ is a must.
• Knowledge of and experience with any of the following are highly relevant: knowledge of the principles underlying C/C++/Rust developer tools (e.g., debuggers, compilers, software analysis and rewriting tools and techniques), LLVM, and fuzzing.
• Experience with Linux-like environments and software development in the context of large (open-source) software projects is highly valuable.
• You can plan and carry out your tasks in an independent way. You have strong analytical skills to interpret the obtained research results.
• You are a team player and have strong communication skills.
• You can commit to timing and milestones set forward by different research projects.
• Your English is fluent, both speaking and writing.

WHAT WE CAN OFFER YOU

• We offer a full-time position as a doctoral fellow, consisting of an initial period of 12 months, which - after a positive evaluation, will be extended to a total maximum of 48 months.
• Your contract will start as soon as you can start.
• The fellowship amount is 100% of the net salary of an AAP member in equal family circumstances. The individual fellowship amount is determined by Team Personnel Administration based on family status and seniority. A grant that meets the conditions and criteria of the regulations for doctoral fellowships is considered free of personal income tax. Click here for more information about our salary scales
• All Ghent University staff members enjoy a number of benefits, such as a wide range of training and education opportunities, 36 days of holiday leave (on an annual basis for a full-time job) supplemented by annual fixed bridge days, bicycle allowance and eco vouchers. Click here for a complete overview of all the staff benefits.

INTERESTED?

Send your cv, three references, a copy of your diploma and transcripts (if already in your possession) and a motivation letter to bjorn.desutter@ugent.be.

We do not accept late applications.

As Ghent University maintains an equal opportunities and diversity policy, everyone is encouraged to apply for this position.

For more information about this vacancy, please contact prof. Bjorn De Sutter (bjorn.desutter@ugent.be, +32(0)9/264 33 67)