Stavros Tripakis

Associate Professor
Khoury College of Computer Sciences
Northeastern University
first name at northeastern dot edu
Office: 340 WVH (West Village H, directions)

I am interested in the foundations of software and system design. My research is in the areas of formal methods and computer-aided verification and synthesis, with applications to distributed systems, security, trustworthy AI, safety-critical systems, and real-time/embedded/cyber-physical systems. Our group develops theory and builds tools for designing better (and better designing) systems.

My h-index is 59: Google Scholar page. My publications at DBLP.

I joined Northeastern in September 2018.

Teaching

Smart Contracts and Analysis, CS 4973/6983: Fall 2025
Formal Specification, Verification, and Synthesis, CS 7430/4830: Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020
Logic and Computation, CS 2800: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Spring 2019
System Specification, Verification, and Synthesis, CS 4830/7485, Fall 2019

Some papers

2025: Accelerating Protocol Synthesis and Detecting Unrealizability with Interpretation Reduction (TACAS)
2024: Efficient Synthesis of Symbolic Distributed Protocols by Sketching (FMCAD)
2024: Scalable, Interpretable Distributed Protocol Verification by Inductive Proof Slicing
2024: Compositional Inductive Invariant Based Verification of Neural Network Controlled Systems (NFM)
2023: Decoupled Fitness Criteria for Reactive Systems (SEFM)
2023: Synthesis of Distributed Protocols by Enumeration Modulo Isomorphisms (ATVA)
2023: Safe Environmental Envelopes of Discrete Systems (CAV)
2023: Counterexample Classification (SoSyM)
2023: On tolerance of discrete systems with respect to transition perturbations (DEDS)
2022: Plain and Simple Inductive Invariant Inference for Distributed Protocols in TLA+ (FMCAD)
2022: On neural network equivalence checking using SMT solvers (FORMATS)
2022: Shield decentralization for safe multi-agent reinforcement learning (NeurIPS)
2022: The refinement calculus of reactive systems (Information and Computation)
2022: Formal verification of a distributed dynamic reconfiguration protocol (CPP)
2020: The Refinement Calculus of Reactive Systems Toolset (STTT) --- TACAS 2018 shorter version
2019: Automated Synthesis of Secure Platform Mappings (CAV)
2018: Data-driven and Model-based Design (ICPS)
2017: Automatic Synthesis of Distributed Protocols (SIGACT News)
2016: Compositionality in the Science of System Design (Proc. IEEE)

Students and postdocs

PhD students at Northeastern:

Derek Egolf (current)
Daniel Melcer (current)
Yuhao Zhou (current)
William Schultz (graduated in 2025, currently staff research engineer at MongoDB)

Former postdocs:

Rômulo Meira-Góes (past postdoc, currently Prof at Penn State)
Eunsuk Kang (past postdoc, currently Prof at CMU)
Viorel Preoteasa (past postdoc at Aalto, currently at Space Systems Finland)
Iulia Dragomir (past postdoc at Aalto, currently at GMV Aerospace and Defence)
Christos Stergiou (past postdoc at Berkeley, currently at Hudson River Trading)
Srinivas Pinisetty (past postdoc at Aalto, currently at IIT Bhubaneswar)
Norman Scaife (past postdoc at VERIMAG co-advised with Paul Caspi)
Aude Maignan (past postdoc at VERIMAG co-advised with Paul Caspi)

Past graduated students:

Georgios Giantamidis (PhD from Aalto in 2023, currently at Collins Aerospace, Ireland)
Ian Dardik (MS from Northeastern, currently PhD student at CMU)
Dania Ali Abuhijleh (NSF REU at Northeastern)
Cole Vick (NSF REU at Northeastern, currently PhD at UT Austin)
Maria Pittou (Licentiate thesis from Aalto, currently at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
Benjamin Caulfield (PhD from UC Berkeley, co-advised with Sanjit Seshia)
Chris Shaver (PhD from UC Berkeley, co-advised with Edward Lee)
Nazha Abed (PhD at VERIMAG co-advised with Jean-Marc Vincent, currently Prof at King Saud University)
Moez Krichen (PhD from VERIMAG, currently Prof at AlBaha University)
Christos Sofronis (PhD at VERIMAG, co-advised with Paul Caspi, currently at Collins Aerospace)
Adrian Curic (PhD from VERIMAG, co-advised with Paul Caspi, currently in Singapore)

Latest Projects

Software

The Refinement Calculus of Reactive Systems (RCRS) --- STTT 2020 paper: The Refinement Calculus of Reactive Systems Toolset --- The RCRS Toolset won a Distinguished Artifact Award at TACAS 2018.

Page maintained by Stavros Tripakis