PhD positions in Software Visualization at CWI

[Craig Anslow]

Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) is an internationally renowned
research institute in mathematics and computer science, located in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The focus is on fundamental research
problems, derived from societal needs. Research is carried out in 18
research themes. More information about these themes can be found on
the websitewww.cwi.nl where you can also find the Annual Reports of
the institute. A substantial part of this research is carried out in
the framework of national or international programs.
CWI maintains excellent relations with industry and the academic
world, both in the Netherlands as well as abroad. After their research
careers at CWI, an increasing number of young staff members find
employment in these sectors, for example in spin-off companies that
are based on research results from CWI. Of course, library and
computing facilities are first-rate. CWI's non-scientific services to
its personnel include career planning, training and courses,
assistance in finding housing, and tailor-made solutions to problems
that may occasionally arise.

CWI has vacancies for two talented PhD candidates for research on
Software Visualization in the Escher project.

Project Summary

Software dominates our modern civilization. However, as size,
complexity, and lifetime of software in- crease, so does its cost. It
is estimated that software maintenance exceeds 80% of the total
evelopment costs. Of this, nearly half is spent in program
understanding. Two main classes of instruments support program
understanding. First, program analysis techniques extract a wealth of
information from source code, dynamic program execution, and the
development process itself, such as models, metrics, and proofs of
correctness. Secondly, software visualization methods present this
information in interactive ways to support the comprehension process
using techniques such as graph layouts, diagrams, dense pixel
displays, treemaps, glyphs, and timelines. However, a fundamental gap
is identifiable between the two: software analysis and visualization
are not integrated in ways that effectively and efficiently support
the sense making, reasoning process, and hypothesis forming central to
understanding. We argue that this gap is at the center of the limited
adoption and success of software visualization methods and, arguably,
of some more complex software analysis methods. For software
visualization to make a true difference, it has to be centered on
answering the questions of its stakeholders, rather than show the data
emerging from program analyses. We cast software analysis and
visualization in a new framework, inspired by the highly successful
visual analytics field. Central to our approach is providing
abstractions, methods and tools that enable the stakeholders to
effectively and efficiently formulate their questions as directly and
as easily as possible, and ways that translate these questions,
abstracting away from the raw analysis data, into suitable
combinations of analysis and visualization instruments.

Requirements

The PhD candidates are required to have at least a master degree in
computer science. Preferable qualifications for candidates include
proven research talent, system programming skills, affinity with
computer graphics and visualization, practical experience with systems
and software development in a team. It is essential that you have good
academic writing and presentation skills. Candidates are expected to
have an excellent command of English.

Terms and conditions-PhD

The terms of employment are in accordance with the Dutch Collective
Labour Agreement for Research Institues ("CAO-
onderzoeksinstellingen"). Moreover CWI offers attractive working
conditions, including flexible scheduling and help with housing for
expat employees. The gross monthly salary, for an employee on a full
time basis, is €2,037 during the first year and increases to €2,610
over a four year period. CWI also offers excellent and flexible terms
of employment, including an employee pension fund.

More Information:

Additional information can be obtained from Prof. dr. Paul Klint,
email Paul....@cwi.nl telephone +31(0)20 592 4126 and on the group's
website http://www.cwi.nl/research-groups/Software-Analysis-and-Transformation
and on http://www.rascal-mpl.org.

Application

Please send your application before 15 November 2010 to: p...@cwi.nl.
Applications should include a detailed CV, a motivation letter, a list
of university grades, a copy of your masters thesis, and preferably a
list of publications.