Affiliation: Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Keywords: Verification; deep neural networks; software engineering; scenario-based programming
Full profile: Prof. Guy Katz is a faculty member at the School of Computer Science and Engineering, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He completed his B.Sc. in 2007, at the Open University of Israel, and went on to obtain his MSc (in 2012) and PhD (in 2015) degrees at the Weizmann Institute, where he was advised by Prof. David Harel. He then took up a postdoctoral position (2016-2017) at Stanford university, hosted by Prof. Clark Barrett, and returned to Israel to join the Hebrew University in 2018.
Prof. Katz’s research is focused on developing techniques for verifying the correctness of complex computer systems – specifically, systems that involve the use of machine learning components, such as deep neural networks. With the rise in prominence of deep learning, such systems are likely to dominate many aspects of our everyday lives in the coming years, and so ensuring their correctness and reliability is of utmost important. In order to tackle this challenge Prof. Katz employs techniques from the field of formal methods (such as SAT and SMT solving, abstraction techniques, and others), and also studies their integration and synergies with advanced techniques for software engineering, such as scenario-based programming.
The work of Prof. Katz has been generously supported by the European Research Council (a Starting Grant, award in 2023), by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), the binational science foundation (BSF), the Israeli Innovation Authority, as well as by multiple industrial partners – such as Airbus, Elbit, and the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC). Guy is married to Itamar, and has two sons, Alon and Eyal.