Winners

Graduate Category:

• 1st. Konstantinos Kallas 
(University of Pennsylvania): Data-Parallel Shell Scripting

• 2nd. Yuxiang Peng
 (University of Maryland): Algebraic Reasoning of Quantum Programs via Non-Idempotent Kleene Algebra

• 3rd. Paul Liétar 
(Imperial College London): Topological Assertions for Flexible Isolation

Undergraduate Category:

• 1st. Darya Verzhbinsky, joint with Daniel Wang
 (University of California San Diego): Petsy: Polymorphic Enumerative Type-Guided Synthesis

• 2nd. David Cao (University of California San Diego): Automated Dependent Resource Analysis

• 3rd. Cole Biafore (Georgia Institute of Technology): Over-Approximating Reachability for Boolean Programs in Polynomial Time

Overview

POPL 2021 will host an ACM Student Research Competition, where undergraduate and graduate students can present their original research before a panel of judges and conference attendees. This year’s competition will consist of three rounds:

• Extended abstract round: All students are encouraged to submit an extended abstract outlining their research. The submission should be up to three pages using “\documentclass[acmsmall,nonacm]{acmart}”.

• Poster session at POPL 2021: Based on the abstracts, a panel of judges will select the most promising entrants to participate in a virtual poster session which will take place online. In addition to an “online poster” (that may include dynamic components), students who are selected for this second round are expected to submit a pre-recorded lightning talk. The judges and participants can then watch the talks offline. In the online poster session, students will have the opportunity to answer questions of judges and conference attendees. Three finalists in each category (graduate/undergraduate) will be selected to advance to the next round.

• POPL presentation: The last round will consist of a short oral live presentation at POPL to compete for the final awards in each category. This round will also select an overall winner who will advance to the ACM SRC Grand Finals.

Prizes

• The top three graduate and the top three undergraduate winners will receive prizes of $500, $300, and $200, respectively.

• All six winners will receive award medals and an one-year complimentary ACM student membership, including a subscription to ACM’s Digital Library.

• The names of the winners will be posted on the SRC web site.

• The first place winners of the SRC will be invited to participate in the ACM SRC Grand Finals, an on-line round of competitions among the winners of other conference-hosted SRCs.

• If the COVID situation allows: Grand Finalists and their advisors will be invited to the Annual ACM Awards Banquet for an all-expenses-paid trip, where they will be recognized for their accomplishments along with other prestigious ACM award winners, including the winner of the Turing Award (also known as the Nobel Prize of Computing).

• ACM and our industrial partners provide financial support for students attending the SRC. You can find more information about this on the SRC website (https://src.acm.org/ ).

Eligibility

The SRC is open to both undergraduate (not in a PhD/master’s program) and graduate students (in a PhD/master’s program). Upon submission, entrants must be enrolled as a student at their universities and be current ACM student members.

Furthermore, there are some constraints on what kind of work may be submitted:

Previously published work: Submissions should consist of original work (not yet accepted for publication). If the work is a continuation of previously published work, the submission should focus on the contribution over what has already been published. We encourage students to see this as an opportunity to get early feedback and exposure for the work they plan to submit to the next POPL.

Collaborative work: Graduate students are encouraged to submit work they have been conducting in collaboration with others, including advisors, internship mentors, or other students. However, graduate submissions are individual, so they must focus on the contributions of the student.

Team submissions: Team projects will be only accepted from undergrads. One person should be designated by the team to make the oral presentation. If a graduate student is part of a group research project and wishes to participate in an SRC, they can submit and present their individual contribution to the group research project.

Accepted Participants

Call for Submissions

POPL invites students to participate in the Student Research Competition in order to present their research and get feedback from prominent members of the programming language research community. Please submit your extended abstracts through HotCRP.

Each submission (referred to as “abstract” below) should include the student author’s name and e-mail address; institutional affiliation; research advisor’s name; ACM student member number; category (undergraduate or graduate); research title; and an extended abstract addressing the following:

• Problem and Motivation: Clearly state the problem being addressed and explain the reasons for seeking a solution to this problem.

• Background and Related Work: Describe the specialized (but pertinent) background necessary to appreciate the work in the context of POPL areas of interest. Include references to the literature where appropriate, and briefly explain where your work departs from that done by others.

• Approach and Uniqueness: Describe your approach in addressing the problem and clearly state how your approach is novel.

• Results and Contributions: Clearly show how the results of your work contribute to programming language design and implementation in particular and to computer science in general; explain the significance of those results.

Submissions must be original research that is not already published at POPL or another conference or journal. One of the goals of the SRC is to give students feedback on ongoing, unpublished work. Furthermore, the abstract must be authored solely by the student. If the work is collaborative with others and/or part of a larger group project, the abstract should make clear what the student’s role was and should focus on that portion of the work.

The extended abstract should be up to three pages using ‘\documentclass[acmsmall,nonacm]{acmart}’. Reference lists do not count towards the three page limit.