Languages, Systems, and Data Seminar (Fall 2026)

Time: Fridays, noon - 1:05pm (PT)
Location: The Internet / The LSD Lab (Engineering 2, Room 398)
Organizers: Achilles Benetopoulos, Lindsey Kuper, Kyle Miller, Sabrina Reis


The Languages, Systems, and Data Seminar meets weekly to discuss interesting topics in the areas of programming languages, systems, databases, formal methods, security, software engineering, verification, architecture, and beyond. Our goal is to encourage interactions and discussions between students, researchers, and faculty with interests in these areas. The seminar is open to everyone interested. Participating UCSC students should register for the 2-credit course CSE 280O (let the organizers know if you’re an undergrad and need a permission code).

For fall 2026, we will continue to host the LSD Seminar in a hybrid fashion. Anyone can attend on Zoom, and local folks can gather in person in the lab. Speakers can join either in person or on Zoom, whichever is convenient.

Talks will be advertised on the ucsc-lsd-seminar-announce (for anyone) and lsd-group (for UCSC-affiliated people) mailing lists.

Date Speaker Title
September 25 No Speaker Social Hour and New Graduate Student Introductions
October 2 Yan Tong Ironwright: A Rusty Bridge from Bounded Model Checking to Full Verification
October 9 TBD TBD
October 16 Ashley Samuelson TBD
October 23 TBD TBD
October 30 Clara “Clarise” Ceerla Mocha: A Motion-Based Choreographic Language
November 6 Esteban Ramos TBD
November 13 Ashton Wiersdorf TBD
November 20 Keith Allen ChorMPI: Choreographies for HPC
November 27 No Speaker Thanksgiving Holiday

September 25

Speaker: No Speaker

Social hour in place of talk. We especially encourage new graduate students to attend.

October 2

Speaker: Yan Tong

Title: Ironwright: A Rusty Bridge from Bounded Model Checking to Full Verification (HATRA Talk)

Abstract: Despite decades of progress on tools for formal verification of distributed systems, it is still hard for verification engineers to close the gap from bounded model checking to full verification. Verification tools that do bridge that gap stop short of producing practically deployable code. We propose Ironwright, a verification framework that addresses these gaps through a unified Rust-based workflow. Developers model and implement distributed systems in a Rust-based shallowly embedded DSL, validate them via automated bounded model checking for rapid iteration, and then “intract” formal specifications from Rust to the Lean proof assistant for rigorous verification. The framework will let developers obtain both verified correctness guarantees and deployable code from the same program.

Bio: TBD

October 9

Speaker: TBD

Title: TBD

Bio: TBD

October 16

Speaker: Ashley Samuelson

Title: TBD

Bio: TBD

October 23

Speaker: TBD

Title: TBD

Bio: TBD

October 30

Speaker: Clara “Clarise” Ceerla

Title: Mocha: A Motion-Based Choreographic Language

Bio: TBD

November 6

Speaker: Esteban Ramos

Title: TBD

Bio: TBD

November 13

Speaker: Ashton Wiersdorf

Title: TBD

November 20

Speaker: Keith Allen

Title: ChorMPI: Choreographies for HPC

Bio: TBD

November 27

Speaker: No Speaker

No seminar due to Thanksgiving holiday.

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