Midwest Verification Day, 2011

This grant will enhance participation in the third Midwest Verification Day 2011 (MVD 11), an informal

workshop with the goal of developing a regional research network in the broad area of verification

and formal methods. The long-term intention is to make MVD a regular annual event, rotating between universities in the midwest that have representation in the relevant research areas. A major focus of MVD is to provide undergraduate and graduate students a means for becoming familiar with ongoing research in the midwest region in the application of formal methods in hardware and software analysis. The workshop also aims to afford students a relaxed, non-competitive forum for presenting their own research to industrial participants and to students and faculty from neighboring universities.

For the significant number of graduate and undergraduate students who originate in the Midwest, such an event can help build the connections and the confidence to go on to graduate school, or advance further in academia. This helps strengthen the domestic talent pool for formal methods. MVD 11 will also strengthen the regional connections between academia and industry, which, over the long term, can have a potent regional economic effect.