Assaf Kfoury

About

Assaf Kfoury is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Boston University, with a research focus on the interactions between Mathematical Logic and Computer Science. His interests include type theory, the lambda-calculus, static analysis, recursion theory, and the theory of program schemas, among other areas. Throughout his career, he has explored various facets of formal methods, automated proof systems, and the theoretical foundations of computer science, often producing tutorials, research reports, and seminar presentations that provide different perspectives on known material. Kfoury's teaching portfolio includes graduate-level courses on Formal Methods in CS, emphasizing SAT/SMT solvers, automated proof assistants, and temporal and modal logics. He has also taught courses on algorithm design, foundations of programming languages, lambda-calculus, computability theory, mathematical logic, and model theory. His approach to teaching involves developing his own lecture notes to stress concepts and their interdependence, aiming for clarity and transparency. His research extends beyond formal logic, engaging with graph theory, applied algorithms, system networking, and software development, often collaborating with colleagues and students on projects that intersect formal methods with practical system applications. Kfoury has contributed to the academic community through the creation of tutorials, research reports, and seminars, covering topics such as proof…

Research topics

• Computer science
• Programming language
• Mathematics
• Theoretical computer science
• Discrete mathematics

Selected publications

• Verifiably-safe software-defined networks for CPS

  2013-04-09 · 38 citations

  articleSenior author

  Next generation cyber-physical systems (CPS) are expected to be deployed in domains which require scalability as well as performance under dynamic conditions. This scale and dynamicity will require that CPS communication networks be programmatic (i.e., not requiring manual intervention at any stage), but still maintain iron-clad safety guarantees. Software-defined networking standards like Openflow provide a means for scalably building tailor-made network architectures, but there is no guarantee…

  PublisherDOI

• A Verification Platform for SDN-Enabled Applications

  2014-03-01 · 37 citations

  articleSenior author

  Recent work on integration of SDNs with application-layer systems like Hadoop has created a class of system, SDN-Enabled Applications, which implement application-specific functionality on the network layer by exposing network monitoring and control semantics to application developers. This requires domain-specific knowledge to correctly reason about network behavior and properties, as the SDN is now tightly coupled to the larger system. Existing tools for SDN verification and analysis are insuf…

  PublisherDOI

• Using Alloy to Formally Model and Reason About an OpenFlow Network Switch

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2016-03-31 · 6 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Openflow provides a standard interface for separating a network into a data plane and a programmatic control plane. This enables easy network reconfiguration, but introduces the potential for programming bugs to cause network effects. To study OpenFlow switch behavior, we used Alloy to create a software abstraction describing the internal state of a network and its OpenFlow switches. This work is an attempt to model the static and dynamic behaviour a network built using OpenFlow switches.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Domain-Specific Language for Incremental and Modular Design of Large-Scale Verifiably-Safe Flow Networks (Preliminary Report)

  2013-07-22 · 6 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  We define a domain-specific language (DSL) to inductively assemble flow networks from small networks or modules to produce arbitrarily large ones, with interchangeable functionally-equivalent parts. Our small networks or modules are "small" only as the building blocks in this inductive definition (there is no limit on their size). Associated with our DSL is a type theory, a system of formal annotations to express desirable properties of flow networks together with rules that enforce them as inva…

  Publisher

• Personal Reflections on the Role of Mathematical Logic in Computer Science

  Fundamenta Informaticae · 2019-10-18 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This article traces in broad strokes the evolution of the intimate relationship between mathematical logic and computer science. The emphasis is on turning points in this relationship, i.e., moments when new directions of research were opened and new connections were established between the two fie lds. The article is not a comprehensive account and history of the relationship, but a personal perspective of a profoundly changed, and still changing, inter-dependence between two mainstays of the m…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Genericity in Network Software: Using Type Systems and Formal Methods to Harness Diverse Theories and Calculi for Scalable and Safe Compositions of Network Services

  NSF · $400k · 2008–2012

Frequent coauthors

• Azer Bestavros

  36 shared

• Robert N. Moll

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  25 shared

• Michael A. Arbib

  University of California, San Diego

  25 shared

• Jerzy Tiuryn

  University of Warsaw

  21 shared

• Paweł Urzyczyn

  University of Warsaw

  20 shared

• Andrei Lapets

  20 shared

• J. B. Wells

  12 shared

• Adam D. Bradley

  University of Ontario Institute of Technology

  11 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  MIT

Similar researchers at Boston University

• Kate Saenkoh-89
• Ran Canettih-78
• Stan Sclaroffh-69