PhD Studentship in Software Testing and Quality Metrics

Applications are invited for a PhD studentship in testing concurrent programs and defining quality metrics for them.

The PhD is fully funded for three years at UK/EU student fee level. The project will be supervised by Ajitha Rajan of the School of Informatics at University of Edinburgh.

Vacancy Information
Developing concurrent programs to a high standard of reliability is notoriously difficult due to the large number of interactions between components executing in parallel. Testing and automated source code analysis aid the developer in finding bugs and ensuring correctness. However, it is infeasible to analyse the entire program in detail since even for small concurrent programs the number of interactions and execution paths quickly become intractable. It, therefore, becomes important to identify parts of the program that are especially error prone, and focus testing and analysis efforts on these parts. For sequential programs, software complexity metrics help identify the error prone parts. For concurrent software, this problem has not received enough attention. In this project we will first devise suitable complexity metrics for concurrent programs, and then apply them to increase the efficiency of automated software analysis and testing.

How to Apply
Potential applicants are first requested to contact Ajitha Rajan with their CV, and a brief statement explaining why they consider themselves a good match for this scholarship. Formal application is through the School's admission process.

Contact: Ajitha Rajan, [Email Address Removed]

Deadline:December 15th 2013