Computer Scientist Stephen Freund Awarded NSF Grant to Study Multithreaded Software

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., July 31, 2014—The National Science Foundation has awarded Williams College computer science professor Stephen Freund a three-year, $198,993 grant to study techniques for automatically identifying defects in multithreaded software.

Multithreaded programs are those capable of executing more than one task, or thread, simultaneously, explains Freund, whose research focuses on the design and implementation of programming languages and verification of multithreaded programs. Designing software to use multiple threads can lead to performance improvements, particularly on today’s multi-core processors. However, if threads are not properly coordinated and synchronized, they may interfere with each other when they access shared resources, such as memory or files. “The effects of such interference problems range from small, innocuous faults to catastrophic failures, such as the 2003 Northeast power blackout,” Freund says.

Interference problems can be quite difficult to identify and fix. As Freund notes, “Manually testing for the presence of interference errors in source code can only cover a small fraction of the possible ways in which operations from different threads are interleaved.”  Freund and his collaborator Cormac Flanagan at the University of California, Santa Cruz, hope to develop analysis tools capable of automatically detecting such errors, thus substantially improving the quality of software.

“The broader impacts of this research are to potentially transform the principles and practices of multithreaded software engineering by enabling more widespread adoption of analysis tools to detect concurrency defects,” Freund says. “This work will contribute to the national software research infrastructure and increase access to science research opportunities and training for students.”

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Founded in 1793, Williams College is the second-oldest institution of higher learning in Massachusetts. The college’s 2,000 students are taught by a faculty noted for the quality of their teaching and research, and the achievement of academic goals includes active participation of students with faculty in their research. Students’ educational experience is enriched by the residential campus environment in Williamstown, Mass., which provides a host of opportunities for interaction with one another and with faculty beyond the classroom. Admission decisions on U.S. applicants are made regardless of a student’s financial ability, and the college provides grants and other assistance to meet the demonstrated needs of all who are admitted.

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Published July 31, 2014