Pavel Avgustinov

The main focus of my research has been in the area of trace monitoring and its applications to runtime verification, which I see as a natural extension of aspect-oriented programming. The basic premise is that a special entity (the trace monitor) observes the history of program execution, and takes special action whenever certain patterns match. This allows for easy instrumentation to check error conditions and invariants, and optionally take remedial action. I have co-implemented the tracematches system (based on this paradigm), which is one of the standard extensions of the AspectBench Compiler (abc) for AspectJ. Of particular interest is the challenge of making such monitors feasible, as well as the intricacies of proving correctness for data structures using weak references.

Other areas I have worked or am interested in are aspect-oriented programming, term rewriting systems, deductive database query languages, extensible compiler construction and (increasingly) the field of software maintenance.

I completed a BA in mathematics and computer science at the University of Oxford (Magdalen College) in 2005 (achieving a First Class with Honours degree), and have been involved in the Programming Tools Group at the Computing Laboratory since then, first collaborating on the AspectBench Compiler (abc) and then as a DPhil student under the supervision of Prof. Oege de Moor. My thesis focuses on general optimisations for trace monitoring features, and I expect to complete it by Autumn 2008.