This funding allows ten students to travel to the Computer Aided Verification 2011 conference and its allied workshops held at Snowbird, Utah, during July 14-20. It also allows these students to partially offset registration costs. The CAV Travel Awards committee emphasizes funding minorities and underrepresented groups. This CAV is 23rd in its series and continues to be pivotal in developing new methods for software and hardware correctness.
INTELLECTUAL MERIT: CAV is the premier conference on software and hardware correctness based on model checking and allied technologies. These methods are fundamental to the production of correct hardware and software. This funding allows the advancement of science by increasing attendance and participation by students, especially underrepresented groups. Such participation is vital for sustaining the intellectual aspects of a flagship conference.
BROADER IMPACT: This award ensures the participation of students, especially underrepresented groups and minorities, in the software and hardware revolution. It ensures the development of vital technologies for correct operation of computing systems used for critical applications ranging from medical to aerospace. It ensures adequate and broad-based supply of trained manpower for hardware/software industries and academia.
Computer Aided Verification is the premier event in the theory and practice of automated verification methods. These methods are crucial for the integrity of the national and international software/hardware infrastructure. Software is now everywhere, controlling critical devices from surgical equipment to banks and the internet. Conventional testing methods for software do not scale up to levels that can handle the complexity and the feature-ridden nature of modern software. Formal methods accelerate failure, discover lurking software execution paths that are never exercised, or help us better understand and characterize software. The 23rd Annual Computer Aided Verification (CAV) was held in Snowbird, UT between July 14-20, 2011. The event was well attended by over 200 top international researchers. This travel award enabled 10 students to actively participate in the International CAV conference for which this travel award was requested and granted. These students interacted with the best talents in this area over five days in a resort setting (Snowbird Conference Center). The total award amount was spent covering the registration and travel costs of these students. We also ensured the participation of several international students studying abroad for which corporate sponsorship was obtained. NSF's support was exclusively used for domestically based students which included two PhD female students and six male PhD and MS students. In conclusion, the organizers gratefully acknowledge NSF's support of CAV. This support had a significant impact and contributes to the broad impact of much-needed student training in this critical area of international focus and attention.
