Emmanuel Filiot

Ph.D., INRIA Lille, 2008.

FNRS Research Director

Formal Methods and Verification Research Group

Computer Science Dpt, Université libre de Bruxelles

CONTACT

  • Mail: Département d’Informatique CP 212 / ULB – Campus de la Plaine, Bd du Triomphe, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium
  • Office: NO Building, Floor 8, office 2.N8.111
  • Phone: +32 (0) 2 650 58 27
  • Email: efiliot at ulb dot be

RECENT WORK

  • [MFCS 2025] Lexicographic transductions of finite words. Joint work with Nathan Lhote (Aix-Marseille University) and Pierre-Alain Reynier (Aix-Marseille University).
  • [MFCS 2025] Register automata with permutations. Joint work with Mrudula Balachander (ULB), Raffaella Gentilini (University of Perugia) and Nikos Tzevelekos (Queen Mary University of London).
  • [ICALP 2025] Approximate Problems for Finite Transducers. Joint work with Ismaël Jecker (University Franche-Comté), Khushraj Madnani (Max Planck Institute for Software Systems) and Saina Sunny (Indian Institute of Technology Goa).
  • [TheoretiCS, 2025 (Volume 4)] Finite-valued Streaming String Transducers. Joint work with Ismaël Jecker (Université Franche-Comté), Christof Löding (RWTH Aachen), Anca Muscholl (LaBRi, Bordeaux), Gabriele Puppis (University of Udine), and Sarah Winter (IRIF, Université Paris-Cité).

RESEARCH INTERESTS

  • Automata models and their connection to logics
  • Automata-theoretic methods for program synthesis
  • Game theory and reactive synthesis
  • Theory of automata with outputs (transducers, weighted automata)
  • Synthesis of infinite-state systems (data automata, counter systems, …)

MAIN RESEARCH PROJECTS

  • 2024-now. FNRS/FWO Weave Project on reactive synthesis and learning. coPI with Guillermo Perez (UAntwerpen).
  • 2019-2023. FNRS MIS Project SYNAPSE. Synthesis of Data-Processing Systems. PI.
  • 2016-2018. FNRS CDR Project Flare. A Shift from Languages to Relations. PI.
  • 2015-2018. ARC Project TRANSFORM. Theoretical Foundations of Transformations. PI.
  • 2014-2018. ANR Project ExStream. Extensions of Stream Processing. Partner

TEAM

PHD STUDENTS

  • Nino Dauvier (Master in CS, Aix-Marseille University), 2024-now, co-supervised with Pierre-Alain Reynier.. Funded by Aix-Marseille University.
  • Allen Joseph (Master in CS, Chennai Mathematical Institute), 2024-now, co-supervised with Guillermo Perez. Funded by an FNRS PDR project.
  • Mrudula Balachander (Master in CS, Chennai Mathematical Institute), 2022-now, co-supervised with Jean-François Raskin. Funded by FNRS (aspirant).
  • Gaëtan Douéneau-Tabot (Master in CS, ENS Cachan), co-supervised with O. Carton, 2019-2023.
  • Nicolas Mazzocchi (Master in CS, ENS Cachan), PhD, co-supervised with Jean-François Raskin. 2016-2020. Subject: Decidable formalisms for quantitative verification. Funded by FRIA.
  • Léo Exibard (Master in CS, ENS Lyon), PhD, co-supervised with Pierre-Alain Reynier. 2017-2021. Subject:Transducers of words over infinite alphabets. Now Assistant Professor (MCF) at Université Gustave Eiffel (Paris).
  • Ismaël JeckerIsmaël Jecker (Master in Mathematics, EPFL), PhD. 2015-2019. Funded by FNRS. Now Assistant Professor at Université de Franche-Comté.
  • Nathan Lhote (Master in CS, ENS Rennes), PhD, Start: 2015-2018. Co-supervised with O. Gauwin (Labri) and A. Muscholl (Labri). Funded by French ANR project EXSTREAM. Now Assistant Professor (MCF) at Aix-Marseille University.
  • Rodica Bozianu (Master in CS, ENS Cachan), PhD, ULB/Paris 12, co-supervised with Catalin Dima. 2013-2016. Now lecturer at University of Iasi.

POSTDOC RESEARCHERS

  • Brett McLean (PhD University College London), 2025-2028. Funded by FNRS (Chargé de recherche)
  • Scott Buckley (PhD University New South Wales), 2024. Now postdoc at University New South Wales
  • Edwin Hamel-De le Court (PhD Rouen, 2019), 2021-2023, now postdoc at Imperial College London
  •  Sarah Winter (PhD RWTH Aachen) FNRS postdoc, 2019-2023, now assistant professor at Université Paris-Cité (IRIF).
  • Ayrat Khalimov(PhD TU Graz) MIS project SYNAPSE, 2019-2023. Now postdoc at TU Clausthal, Germany.
  • Luc Dartois (PhD at LIAFA, Paris 7), 2015-2018. Funded by ARC Project TRANSFORM. Now Assistant Professor (MCF) at Université Paris-Est

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS

PUBLICATIONS

TOOLS

  • Acacia+, a tool for LTL synthesis (2012, no longer maintained, please contact me for source code)
  • Tree automata library in OCaml (2004, no longer maintained, please contact me for source code)

SELECTED presentations

  • Reactive synthesis over infinite data domains: here
  • On some transducer synthesis problems: here
  • Lecture on basics of finite transducers (EJCIM summer school): here
  • Specification and synthesis of finite word transductions: here
  • Logic-automata connections for transformations (with a sketch of proof for 2DFT / MSOT equivalence): here
  • Survey on word transducers: here
  • Transducer theory and streaming transformations: here
  • Tutorial on queries on trees: here
  • Tutorial on determinization of Büchi automata: here

Teaching

Since 2013, I’m teaching “Foundations of Computer Science” at ULB, Bachelor in CS, 3rd year. The lecture introduces basic concepts of theoretical CS including: logics (boolean, first-order), proof systems, SAT/constraint solving, complexity theory including NP-hardness, computability, finite automata, program proofs.

Since 2026, I’m also teaching “Algorithms” in Bachelor in CS, 2nd year, at ULB.

MISC


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Links

Université libre de Bruxelles

Computer Science Department

Science Faculty