Mark Lawford
B.Sc. (Eng.) (Queen's), M.A.Sc. (Toronto), Ph.D. (Toronto), P.Eng.
Greetings.
I am Professor and Chair of the Department of Computing and Software.
I am also a founding member of the
McMaster Centre for Software Certification (McSCert).
I joined the department in August 1998 as an
Assistant Professor. My PhD was completed under the supervision of
Prof. W.M. Wonham in the Systems Control group at the University of Toronto in February 1997. From March 1997 to July 1998 I was
a contractor at Ontario Hydro performing Formal Verification of the
Darlington Nuclear Generating Station Shutdown System Trip Computer
Software. For the small part I played in helping to automate the systematic design verification of safety critical software on that project, I was a co-recipient of an Ontario Hydro New Technology award. My research interests fall under
the general headings of Software Engineering and
Control of Discrete Event Systems (DES), in particular Software Certification, Formal
Methods for Real-Time Systems (synthesis, verification, and model
reduction), practical application of formal methods in the software engineering process, computer aided inspection, and supervisory control of modular, nondeterministic and
probabilistic DES, and hybrid systems.
I am a licensed Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario and a Senior Member of the IEEE.
Academic Activities:
Publications:
A bibliography of selected papers with abstracts
, BibTeX entries and full papers downloads of some of my work.
Research Collaborations:
I currently have a number of ongoing research collaborations:
- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) through research contracts and an NSERC CRD led by Ali Emadi and in the past funded by the APC funded LEAP project
- General Motors through an NSERC CRD and in the past through the APC and ORF-RE funded NECSIS project
Some past research collaborations of note have been:
- Toyota InfoTechnology Center donation for Automotive Software Certification
- Ontario Power Generation, Systemware International, and others through the ORF-RE funded Certification of Safety-Critical Software-Intensive Systems project
Tools for Matlab/Simulink:
Tabular Expression Toolbox was originally developed by my former Software Engineering M.A.Sc. student Colin Eles. More information on the tool is available here
Auto Layout Tool. Automatically clean up model layout in manual or auto generated simulink models. Developed by Bennett MacKenzie, Steven Postma and Jeff Ong
Data Store Pushdown (scoping) - Automatically scope (and rescope) Data Stores to help meet proposed MAAB guidelines and improve model structure and modularity. Developed by Bennett MacKenzie, Steven Postma and Jeff Ong
Reach/Coreach Tool - Trace data dependencies forward (reach) and backwards (coreach) and slice models taking into account implicit data and control flow. Developed by Bennett MacKenzie, Steven Postma and Jeff Ong
Signature Tool - Detect and document implicit data flow involving data stores and goto/from blocks. Automatically generate documentation of inputs/outputs and updates. Developed by Bennett MacKenzie, Steven Postma, Gordon Marks and Jeff Ong
Software Certification Consortium (SCC):
I have been working with my McSCert colleagues (Alan Wassyng and Tom Maibaum) and many others, to establish a Software Certification Consortium (SCC). One of SCC's first initiatives is to issue a Software Grand Challenge to use formal methods to specify, design and implement a Pacemaker. The starting point is an informal requirements document from Boston Scientific and a PIC Microcontroller based hardware reference platform developed at the University of Minnesota. I am currently in the process of getting Pacemaker boards manufactured. Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing one.
Conferences etc.
- ICFEM 2016, Program Committee Co-Chair, 18th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods, TKP Conference Centre, Tokyo, Japan 14-18 November 2016
- WoSoCer 2016, Program Committee Co-Chair, 6th IEEE International Workshop on Software Certification, Co-located with ISSSRE 2016, Ottawa, Canada, 23-27 October 2016
- FormaliSE 2014-2016, Program Committee, FME Workshop on Formal Methods in Software Engineering, -- an ICSE Event
- WoSoCer 2013, Program Committee, 3rd edition of the IEEE International Workshop on Software Certification, co-located with the 24th IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE), and it will take place in Pasadena, CA, USA, in November 4-7, 2013.
- EMSOFT 2013, Program Committee, International Conference on Embedded Software, September 29 - October 4, 2013, Montreal Canada.
- Dagstuhl Seminar 13051, Co-Organizer, Software Certification: Methods and Tools, January 27 to February 1, 2013, Dagstuhl, Germany.
- FormalSE 2013, Programm Committee, FME Workshop on Formal Methods in Software Engineering (FormaliSE), A workshop that will be be held on Saturday 25 May 2013, San Francisco (USA), in conjunction with ICSE 2013.
- FHIES 2011, 2012, Program Committee, International Symposium on Foundations of Health Information Engineering and Systems.
- ISoLA 2010, Program Committee, 4th International Symposium On Leveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification and Validation, 18-20 October 2010, Amirandes, Heraclion, Crete.
- FGPAs in NPP, Co-Chair, 3rd Workshop on the Application of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) in Nuclear Power Plants, Sept. 28-Oct. 1, 2010, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
- APRES 2009 Program Committee Member, 2nd Workshop on Adaptive and Reconfigurable Embedded Systems, Oct 11, 2009, Grenoble, France.
- CCECE 2009 Technical Program Committee Chair for Symposium on Computers, Software and Applications, IEEE Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering, May 3-6, 2009.
- ICFEM 2008 Program Committee Member, 10th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods,
Oct. 27 - 31, Kitakyushu-city, Japan.
- FMICS 2008 Program Committee Member, 13th International Workshop on Formal Methods for Industrial Critical Systems, September 15-16, 2008,
L'Aquila, Italy
- AFM 2006 Program Committee Member,
Automated Formal Methods Workshop - 21 August 2006, Seattle, USA.
- ICFEM 2005 Program Committee Member,
7th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods -1-4 November 2005, Manchester, UK.
-
ICFEM 2004Program Committee Member,
6th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods -
Microsoft Research, Seattle, WA, Nov. 2004
- ACSD 2004 Local Organizing Committee - Sponsorships Director of Applications of Concurrency to Systems Design - Software Quality Research Lab, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada June 2004.
- Joint Special Issues of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering and IEEE Software Magazine on "Inspection in Software Engineering" -
Guest Co-Editor with David L. Parnas - Selected papers from the First Workshop on Inspection in Software Engineering(WISE'01) were published focusing on the theory in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (Vol. 29, No. 8,
August 2003) and the practice in IEEE Software Magazine (Vol. 20, No. 4, July/August 2003).
- WISE'01 - Co-Chair - The First Workshop on Inspection in Software Engineering (WISE'01) was
held in June 2001 as one of 4 official satellite workshops of CAV'01.
Publicity
- McMaster University Faculty of Engineering video featuring McMaster researchers including me and Monika Bialy, Ph.D. student in Softwar Engineering (co-supervised with Alan Wassyng)
- McMaster Faculty of Engineering ad Monika's story
Service:
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Discovery Grant Selection Committee 330 - Computing and Information Sciences A 2008-2010 Competitions.
Undergraduate Courses:
Term 1:
MECHTRON 3TA4 Embedded Systems Design I
Avenue is the main source for course information.
Term 2:
MECHTRON/SFWR ENG 3DX4 Dynamic Models and Control of Physical Systems
Avenue is the main source for course information.
Past Graduate Course:
CAS 725 Formal Methods for Real-Time Systems - information, lecture slides and assignment hand
outs, etc. available on Avenue.
Previous Undergraduate Courses:
SFWR ENG 4G06 Software Engineering Senior Thesis
SFWR ENG 2F03 Mathematical Logic for Software Engineering - information, lecture slides and assignment handouts etc.
SFWR ENG 4A03 Real-Time Systems and Computer Control
Systems - information, lecture slides and assignment handouts, etc.
Previous Graduate Course:
CAS 704 Real-Time, Embedded Systems
CS 734 - information, lecture slides and assignment hand
outs, etc.
Current Research Engineers, Postdocs and Graduate Students
Vera Pantelic, Research Engineer, NSERC APC/Chrysler Leadership in Automotive Powertrain (LEAP) project (On leave 09/2016-08/2017)
Lucian Patcas, Reseaerch Engineer, LEAP
Matthew Dawson, Research Engineer, FCA Internships
Monika Bialy, Ph.D. in Software Engineering, (Co-supervised with Alan Wassyng)
Eric Lesiuta, Ph.D. in Software Engineering
Nicholas Moore, Ph.D. in Software Engineering
Bennett MacKenzie, M.A.Sc. in Software Engineering, LEAP
Alexander Schaap, M.A.Sc. in Software Engineering (Co-supervised with Jacques Carette)
Asim Shah, M.A.Sc. in Software Engineering (Co-supervised with Alan Wassyng)
Stephen Wynn-Williams, M.A.Sc. Software Engineering, LEAP
Michael Rowinski, M.Eng. in Mechatronics Engineering (Co-supervised with Alan Wassyng)
Recent Graduate Students
Alex Korobkine, Research Engineering, Now working as a powertrain engineer at GM's Milford Proving Grounds
Grant Whinton, M.A.Sc. in Software Engineering, Now an Engineer at GM Canada's CREC in Oshawa
Linna Pang, Ph.D. in Computer Science, Now working at Systemware International
Lane Gibson, M.Eng. in Mechatronics, Now working at Systemware International
Archana Mallya, M.A.Sc. in Software Engineering
Xiayong (Jason) Hu, Ph.D. in Software Engineering, Now Application Architect, Ontario Lab Information System - Minitstry of Health and Long term care
Vera Pantelic, Ph.D. in Software Engineering, Now a Research Engineer at McMaster
Jenab Baluwala, M.Eng. in Software Engineering
Peter Bergstra, M.A.Sc. in Software Engineering (Co-supervised with Nicola Nicolici)
Ben Breimer, M.A.Sc. in Software Engineering (Co-supervised with Alan Wassyng) - Now working at Candu Energy
Honghan Deng, M.A.Sc. in Software Engineering, Now working at Invensys
Colin Eles, M.A.Sc. in Software Engineering, Now working at Electronic Arts
Asif Iqbal, M.A.Sc. in Software Engineering (Co-supervised with Alan Wassyng)
Lucian Patcas, Ph.D. in Software Engineering (Co-supervised with Tom Maibaum)
Steven Postma, Research Engineer, SOSCIP
Mitch Shaughnessy, M.Eng. in Mechatronics, Now working at Brock Solutions
John Stribbell, M.Eng. in Mechatronics Engineering, Now working at Brock Solutions
Billy Taj, M.A.Sc. in Software Engineering
Sasan Vakili, M.A.Sc. in Software Engineering
Marvin Zuzarte, M.A.Sc. in Software Engineering (Co-supervised with Nicola Nicolici)
I have been an avid Linux user/sys admin since 1994.
To learn about the Linux operating system, check out the
Linux Documentation Project. I currently use Fedora Linux.
I stayed in school this long,
but still no one can tell me why?
They figure who would know,
better than I?
from Autobiography by Sloan off one cord to another
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