The Grainger College of Engineering

Talia Ringer

Talia Ringer
Talia Ringer they/them/theirs
  • Assistant Professor
4218 Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science

For More Information

Education

  • Ph.D., Computer Science, University of Washington, 2021
  • B.S., Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Maryland, College Park, 2012

Biography

How can we build a world in which programmers of all skill levels across all domains can prove the absence of costly or dangerous bugs in software systems---that is, formally verify them? A world in which mathematicians, both amateur and professional, can seamlessly collaborate with one another at a massive scale without compromising correctness? I am an Assistant Professor with the PL/FM/SE group at Illinois, and I like to build proof engineering technologies to make that world a reality. In so doing, I love to use the whole toolbox---everything from dependent type theory to program transformations to machine learning---all in service of real humans.

Prior to Illinois, I earned my PhD in 2021 from the University of Washington, working with the wonderful PLSE group. Prior to graduate school, I earned my BS in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Maryland, then worked as a software engineer at Amazon for three years.

I am extremely passionate about building a welcoming environment for students. I am founder and chair of the SIGPLAN long-term mentoring committee (called SIGPLAN-M), an international long-term cross-institutional mentoring program for aspiring and current programming languages researchers spanning dozens of countries and reaching hundreds of mentees around the world. I am also the founder and president of the Computing Connections Fellowship, a fellowship that provides institution-independent transitional funding for computer science Ph.D. students who need help escaping unhealthy environments.

I am openly bisexual and prefer they/them pronouns; I am always happy to talk to LGBTQ students. I am neurodivergent and happy to talk about my ADHD. I am also very open about my experiences with mental illness, and very happy to talk to anyone who needs an ear (though students should keep in mind that I am a mandatory reporter through Title IX).

Academic Positions

  • Assistant Professor, Siebel School of Computing and Data Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2021-Present

Other Professional Employment

  • Visiting Researcher, Google Research (N2Formal), Mountain View CA, Summer 2022 - Winter 2022
  • Research Scientist Intern, Automated Reasoning Group, Amazon, New York NY, Summer 2016
  • Software Development Engineer II, Amazon, Seattle WA, 2015

Professional Highlights

  • My work founding SIGPLAN-M and CCF (along with my other service work) led me to receive the 2023 ACM SIGPLAN Distinguished Service Award.
  • Proof repair, the subject of my PhD thesis, has since been reimplemented by researchers and engineers at NASA. It was also the subject of a DARPA AI Exploration called PEARLS. The concept of "proof repair" is now common parlance in the field.

Other Undergraduate Advising Activities

  • Eyad Loutfi, Senior Thesis: Adding new automation to proof repair, SSCDS, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2024-2025.
  • Zory Zhang, Senior Thesis: Learning structurally recursive functions, Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2023.
  • Sankar Gopalkrishna (co-advised with Christopher Fletcher and Hannah Leung), Senior Thesis: Verified secure computer architectures, Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2022-2025.
  • Eeshan Zele (co-advised with Christopher Fletcher and Hannah Leung), Senior Thesis: Verified secure computer architectures, Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2022-2024.
  • Max Fan, Senior Thesis: Building practical proof repair tools for relations more general than type equivalences, Placement: Ph.D at Cornell, Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2022-2024.
  • Timothy Zhou, Senior Thesis: Improving neural tactic prediction models for proof synthesis and repair, Placement: Ph.D. at UCSD, Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2021-2024.
  • Jasper Hugunin (co-advised with Dan Grossman), Senior Thesis: Constructing Inductive-Inductive Types in Cubical Type Theory (published in FOSSACS 2019), University of Washington, 2018-2019.
  • Taylor Blau (co-advised with Dan Grossman), Senior Thesis: Verifying Strong Eventual Consistency in δ-CRDTs, University of Washington, 2019-2020.

Research Interests

  • Formal Mathematics
  • Dependent Type Theory
  • Verification
  • Interactive Theorem Proving
  • Proof Automation
  • Proof Engineering

Research Areas

Monographs

Selected Articles in Journals

Articles in Conference Proceedings

Abstracts (in print or accepted)

Pending Articles

Invited Lectures

Bulletins

Magazine Articles

Journal Editorships

  • Peer Reviewer, Nature, 2025
  • Peer Reviewer, Nature, 2023
  • Peer Reviewer, Journal of Automated Reasoning (JAR), 2022
  • Peer Reviewer, Mathematical Structures in Computer Science (MSCS), 2020

Conferences Organized or Chaired

  • General Chair, 53rd ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages (POPL), 2026
  • Co-Chair, Coq Workshop, Federated Logic Conference (FLoC), 2022
  • Co-Chair, Beyond Bayes: Paths Towards Universal Reasoning Systems Workshop, International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 2022
  • Mentoring Chair, International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP), 2020
  • Co-Chair, Programming Languages Mentoring Workshop (PLMW), International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP), 2020

Professional Societies

  • DEI Chair, PLDI, 2027.
  • Reviewer, POPL, 2026.
  • Reviewer, ACL, 2026.
  • Program Committee, International Conference on Interactive Theorem Proving (ITP), 2026
  • Program Committee, Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI), 2026
  • Program Committee, International Conference on Certified Programs and Proofs (CPP), 2026
  • Selection Committee, ACM SIGPLAN Distinguished Service Award Committee, 2025 - Present
  • Program Committee, ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages (POPL), 2024
  • Previous Chair, ACM SIGPLAN Long-Term Mentoring Committee (SIGPLAN-M), 2023 - Present
  • Program Committee, International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP), 2023
  • Program Committee, International Conference on Interactive Theorem Proving (ITP), 2022
  • Program Committee, Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI), 2022
  • Mentor, ACM SIGPLAN Long-Term Mentoring Committee (SIGPLAN-M), 2021-Present
  • Founder & Chair, ACM SIGPLAN Long-Term Mentoring Committee (SIGPLAN-M), 2021 - 2022
  • Hybridization Committee, Systems, Programming, Languages, and Applications: Software for Humanity (SPLASH) Conference, 2021
  • Panel Organizer, POPLmark 15 Year Retrospective, Principles of Programming Languages (POPL), 2020
  • Artifact Evaluation Committee (AEC), Computer-Aided Verification (CAV), 2019
  • Artifact Evaluation Committee (AEC), Principles of Programming Languages (POPL), 2019
  • Artifact Evaluation Committee (AEC), Principles of Programming Languages (POPL), 2018

Service on Department Committees

  • Member, BPC Committee, Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2022 - 2023
  • Member, CS CARES Committee, SSCDS, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2021 - Present

Service on College Committees

  • Core Faculty Member, Grainger College of Engineering IDEA Institute, 2022-2024

Service on Campus Committees

  • Illini Rhythm Syndicate Faculty Mentor, 2026 - Present.
  • Mental Health Ambassador, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2021 - Present

Service to Federal and State Government

  • Panelist, National Science Foundation, 2024
  • Panelist, National Science Foundation, 2023
  • Scientific Advisory Committee, Banff International Research Station (BIRS), 2023-Present
  • Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Advisory Committee, Banff International Research Station (BIRS), 2023-Present
  • Planning Committee, Computational Cybersecurity in Compromised Environments (C3E) Symposium on Generative AI and Large Language Models, 2023
  • Planning Committee, AI to Assist Mathematical Reasoning Workshop, National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), 2023

Other Outside Service

  • Program Committee, International Workshop on Rocq for Programming Languages (RocqPL), 2026
  • Program Committee, International Workshop on Coq for Programming Languages (CoqPL), 2023
  • Founder & President, Computing Connections Fellowship Fund, 2022-2025
  • Program Committee, International Workshop on Coq for Programming Languages (CoqPL), 2022
  • Program Committee, International Conference on Types for Proofs and Programs (TYPES), 2022
  • Program Committee, Computer-Aided Verification (CAV), 2021
  • Program Chair, Artificial Intelligence for Programming Language and Software Engineering (AIPLANS) Workshop, 2021
  • Program Committee, Workshop on Human Aspects of Types of Reasoning Assistants (HATRA), 2020
  • Program Committee, International Workshop on Coq for Programming Languages (CoqPL), 2019

Honors

  • ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award, ESEC/FSE, 2023
  • Young Faculty Award, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), 2023
  • ACM SIGPLAN Distinguished Service Award, 2023 (June 19th, 2023 )
  • Recipient, Amazon Research Awards, 2022

Improvement Activities

  • Collins Scholar Program, Academy for Excellence in Engineering Education (AE3), Grainger College of Engineering, Illinois, 2022

Recent Courses Taught

  • CS 421 - Progrmg Languages & Compilers
  • CS 498 SF3 (CS 498 SF4, CS 498 SFU) - Software Foundations
  • CS 576 - Topics in Automated Deduction
  • CS 598 TLR - Build your own Proof Assistant
  • CS 598 TLR - Proof Automation

Related News