Machine learning for code (BigCode), Robust and Trustworthy AI, Quantum Programming, Silq Programming Language
Awards
ACM SIGPLAN Robin Milner Young Researcher Award 2019 John Atanasoff Award ERC Starting Grant IBM Extraordinary Accomplishment Award IBM Research Outstanding Project Award Distinguished Paper Awards (RV 2010, OOPSLA 2016) Google Faculty Award Facebook Faculty Award
Prof. Vechev is the Founder and Architect of
INSAIT, the first world-class research center in computer science and artificial intelligence in Eastern Europe, created in partnership with ETH Zurich and EPFL.
He is known for his pioneering works in machine learning for code (BigCode), where he introduced statistical programming engines trained on large codebases,[1] reliable and trustworthy artificial intelligence,[2] where he introduced abstract interpretation methods for reasoning about deep neural networks to enable the verification of large machine learning models, and quantum programming, introducing the first high-level programming language and system Silq.[3]
Vechev has received the
ACM SIGPLAN Robin Milner Young Researcher Award in 2019[4][5][6] and a highly-visible
ERC Starting Grant,[7][8][9][10] which helped shape the area of machine learning for code. In 2016, his Ph.D. student Veselin Raychev received an Honorable Mention for the
ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award and in 2021 his Ph.D. student Gagandeep Singh received the
ACM SIGPLAN Doctoral Dissertation Award.[11][12]
Vechev has also co-founded the deep tech start-ups LatticeFlow,[13][14] DeepCode,[15][16][17] and ChainSecurity.[18]
Early life and education
Martin Vechev was born in
Sofia,
Bulgaria, where he attended the Sofia High School of Mathematics (SMG) from 1991 to 1994. He received a B.Sc. in
Computer Science from
Simon Fraser University in 2001 and a Ph.D. in computer science from the
University of Cambridge in 2008. Prior to starting at ETH Zurich in 2012, Vechev was a Research Staff Member at the
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in New York, USA in the period 2007-2011.
Career
He has been in a group at ETH Zurich that has resulted in the creation of popular systems:
JSNice, DeGuard, and DeBIN, statistical deobfuscators for javascript, Android apps, and binary executables.
ETH Robustness Analyzer for Neural Networks (ERAN), a sound, precise, and scalable robustness verifier for deep neural networks based on abstract interpretation.
Silq, the first high-level programming language for quantum computing with a strong static type system [19][3]
PSI Solver, an exact inference engineer for probabilistic programs
ELINA, a state-of-the-art library for numerical abstract domains for static analysis
Securify and VerX, static analyzer and automated verifier for Ethereum smart contracts
SyNET, NetComplete, NetDice: systems for deterministic and probabilistic verification and synthesis for computer networks
He has also co-founded the deep tech start-ups:
LatticeFlow, building the world’s first platform for delivering robust and trustworthy AI systems.[20][21]
DeepCode, the first AI-based code review system, acquired by the security unicorn Snyk in 2020.[15][16][17]
and ChainSecurity, smart contract security audits based on formal mathematical guarantees, acquired by PwC Switzerland in 2020.[18]
Awards
ACM SIGPLAN Robin Milner Young Researcher Award[4][5][6] in 2019 for major contributions to the area of programming languages;
ERC Starting Grant[7][8][9][10] for the project BIGCODE, the first to combine advanced programming languages and machine learning techniques, which developed new AI-based methods for creating and debugging software;