School of Computing Science

Learning & Teaching Scholars Kick-off

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 26 January, 2026
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Location:Online

SICSA’s Learning & Teaching Scholars will kick-off the 25/26 cohort with a speed networking event.

TREC Interactive Knowledge Assistance Track (iKAT): the Track, the Research, and What’s Next

Group: Information Retrieval (IR)
Speaker: Mohammad Aliannejadi, University of Amsterdam
Date: 26 January, 2026
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Title
TREC Interactive Knowledge Assistance Track (iKAT): the Track, the Research, and What’s Next

Abstract
In this talk, I will give a brief overview of three years of TREC iKAT, summarizing the track’s tasks, goals, and achievements. I will dive deeper into some of the aspects of the track, such as retrieval, personalization, and evaluation. Furthermore I will discuss the latest findings of iKAT 2025 and our plan to continue the track in 2026. The discussion on retrieval will revolve around our proposed MQ4CS framework for multi-aspect query generation, followed by a discussion on personalization inspired by a recent CIKM paper. I will then continue with our experience and design of LLM-based evaluation for iKAT and the lessons we learned. Finally, I will focus on simulation-based evaluation that was initially introduced in iKAT 2025 and will continue in iKAT 2026.

Bio
Mohammad Aliannejadi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His research interests include single and mixed-initiative conversational information access and recommender systems. Previously, he completed his PhD at Universita della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland, where he focused on novel approaches to information access in conversations. He has been publishing in top-tier IR and NLP venues such as SIGIR, ACM TOIS, ACL, EMNLP, ECIR, etc., and has been serving as (S)PC for the main conferences in the area, as well as co-chairing ECIR 2026 Short Paper track and ICTIR 2023. His other contributions include spearheading the ClariQ Conversational AI Challenge (ConvAI 3), co-organizing the NeurIPS 2021 competition on Interactive Grounded Language Understanding in a Collaborative Environment (IGLU). Mohammad is one of the main organizers of TREC CAsT 2022 and TREC iKAT 2023-2025.

DataFlow-Guided On-Device Fuzzing for Microcontrollers

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Kai Feng, University of Glasgow
Date: 27 January, 2026
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

We present Hardfuzz, an on-device fuzzer that uses definition-use (def-use) chains to guide exploration. Hardfuzz performs offline static analysis to extract def-use pairs from the binary, then runs directly on the device and uses the debug unit’s hardware breakpoints to observe when definitions and their uses execute. Two small bitmaps in shared memory record (i) which definitions execute and (ii) which def-use pairs execute, giving rich feedback than basic-block coverage alone. A lightweight scheduler prioritises definitions with many uses and adapts to the few hardware breakpoints available on MCUs.

We evaluate Hardfuzz against another hardware breakpoint- based solution, GDBFuzz. In emulation, Hardfuzz achieves higher basic-block coverage in most targets and progresses faster in the early hours running on emulation. On hardware, it covers 14-40% more basic blocks after 24 hours across three programs with known faults. These results show that def-use guidance is practical on MCUs and improves exploration over control-flow-only feedback.

[FATA Seminar] Logics and Complexity Theory on Reals with Connections to Neural Networks

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Jonni Virtema, FATA
Date: 27 January, 2026
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Room 422, SAWB

Descriptive complexity theory is a branch of complexity theory where one uses formal logics to characterise complexity classes. It was shown by Fagin in 1974 that a property of finite structures is decidable in NP if and only if the property is definable in existential second-order logic. The goal of this talk is to survey some adaptations of Fagin-style theorems in the setting of numerical data, and how this approach has recently been useful in charactering the training complexity of neural networks. In order to generalise Fagin’s theorem to the numerical setting one needs three generalisations: 1) Metafinite structures by Grädel and Gurevich (1998) adds an infinite numerical sort and weight functions to finite structure, 2) Blum-Shub-Smale machines (1989) generalise Turing machines by allowing direct computations with real numbers, 3) logics on metafinite structures utilise the numerical components therein. I will briefly mention the first Fagin-style theorem in this setting by Grädel and Meer (1995) that characterises NP on BSS-machines with a generalisation of existential second-order logic on R-structures (i.e. on metafinite structures where the numerical sort is the reals). Interestingly, on Boolean inputs, NP on BSS-machines coincides with the complexity class ExistsR (closure of the existential theory of the reals with polynomial time reductions) that has in recent years seen increasing interest. I will conclude by showing that by using a logical approach, we can pinpoint the complexity of training neural networks with diverse activation functions (AAAI 2024). In particular, I will show that the training complexity with the sigmoid activation function coincides with existential theory of the reals with the exponentiation function, whose decidability is an open problem posed by Tarski in the 1950s.

Aberdeen GameJam 2026

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 28 January, 2026
Time: 12:00 - 17:00
Location:Meston Building, University of Aberdeen, Meston Walk, Aberdeen, AB24 3UE

View full event details here. After the success of last year, University of Aberdeen’s School of Natural and Computing Sciences will be running Aberdeen GameJam 2026, this time in partnership with the History department! The event is open to students at University of Aberdeen and any other Scottish University. Each participant will receive an Aberdeen GameJam 2026 t-shirt and Amazon vouchers will be awarded to winners in each prize category. Additionally, ABVentures and Common Profyt Games have sponsored prizes, one for the Best Pitch, and one for a category yet to be announced! This year’s general theme is Games & History (so it might be a good idea to grab somebody who knows their history!) Participants will have a week to develop from scratch a game on a more specific theme that will be announced on Wednesday, 21 January 2026, followed by an in-person event starting at 9am on Wednesday, 28 January 2025 where teams will get feedback from judges. Teams will make a short presentation of their game starting at Noon and then judges will choose a winner for our prizes to be announced that afternoon.

Upwards Seminar: "IAA funding applications and projects"

Group: School of Computing Science
Speaker: Drs Javier Sanz-Cruzado Puig and Edmond Ho, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 28 January, 2026
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Topic: IAA funding applications and projects

Speakers:

- Dr Javier Sanz-Cruzado Puig (SoCS, IDA, Postdoc)

- Dr Edmond Ho (SoCS, IDA, Senior Lecturer)

Location: In room SAWB 422 and on Zoom (https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/ j/82777296923?pwd=k5qqyTXrnqm2iF1MfUzY5tDpcs6a24.1).

What will this session be about?
 
It is up to the speakers to set the agenda for their Upwards talks, but the idea of this seminar instance is to hear lessons learned from applying for and driving Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) projects to make an impact with UofG research results, both from an academic and a postdoc researcher perspective: When does it make sense to apply for IAA funding? What is the funding useful for? What kind of impact are we talking about? How do you win the funding? How do successful IAA projects look? How can you sustain impact beyond an IAA project?

What is Upwards?
 
Upwards is the School of Computing Science’s research culture seminar, covering all facets of developing, conducting, and disseminating research and related topics (e.g. managing a research team, time management to do research, connections between research and teaching). It is open to everyone in the School, but a specific aim is to support ECR development and some sessions are aimed mainly at PGRs and/or PDRAs.

How are the seminars held?

Upwards seminars are held in person in the School to bring people together. In addition, the sessions are streamed on Zoom to allow to join remotely, if attending in person is not an option. To preserve the off-the- record atmosphere of the seminars, which allows speakers to speak more freely about their personal experiences, the seminars are not recorded and the slides are not shared. For the same reason, AI tools (such as those that automatically take meeting notes) will not be permitted. 

Learning & Teaching Scholars Kick-off

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 26 January, 2026
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Location: Online

SICSA’s Learning & Teaching Scholars will kick-off the 25/26 cohort with a speed networking event.

TREC Interactive Knowledge Assistance Track (iKAT): the Track, the Research, and What’s Next

Group: Information Retrieval (IR)
Speaker: Mohammad Aliannejadi, University of Amsterdam
Date: 26 January, 2026
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Title
TREC Interactive Knowledge Assistance Track (iKAT): the Track, the Research, and What’s Next

Abstract
In this talk, I will give a brief overview of three years of TREC iKAT, summarizing the track’s tasks, goals, and achievements. I will dive deeper into some of the aspects of the track, such as retrieval, personalization, and evaluation. Furthermore I will discuss the latest findings of iKAT 2025 and our plan to continue the track in 2026. The discussion on retrieval will revolve around our proposed MQ4CS framework for multi-aspect query generation, followed by a discussion on personalization inspired by a recent CIKM paper. I will then continue with our experience and design of LLM-based evaluation for iKAT and the lessons we learned. Finally, I will focus on simulation-based evaluation that was initially introduced in iKAT 2025 and will continue in iKAT 2026.

Bio
Mohammad Aliannejadi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His research interests include single and mixed-initiative conversational information access and recommender systems. Previously, he completed his PhD at Universita della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland, where he focused on novel approaches to information access in conversations. He has been publishing in top-tier IR and NLP venues such as SIGIR, ACM TOIS, ACL, EMNLP, ECIR, etc., and has been serving as (S)PC for the main conferences in the area, as well as co-chairing ECIR 2026 Short Paper track and ICTIR 2023. His other contributions include spearheading the ClariQ Conversational AI Challenge (ConvAI 3), co-organizing the NeurIPS 2021 competition on Interactive Grounded Language Understanding in a Collaborative Environment (IGLU). Mohammad is one of the main organizers of TREC CAsT 2022 and TREC iKAT 2023-2025.

DataFlow-Guided On-Device Fuzzing for Microcontrollers

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Kai Feng, University of Glasgow
Date: 27 January, 2026
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

We present Hardfuzz, an on-device fuzzer that uses definition-use (def-use) chains to guide exploration. Hardfuzz performs offline static analysis to extract def-use pairs from the binary, then runs directly on the device and uses the debug unit’s hardware breakpoints to observe when definitions and their uses execute. Two small bitmaps in shared memory record (i) which definitions execute and (ii) which def-use pairs execute, giving rich feedback than basic-block coverage alone. A lightweight scheduler prioritises definitions with many uses and adapts to the few hardware breakpoints available on MCUs.

We evaluate Hardfuzz against another hardware breakpoint- based solution, GDBFuzz. In emulation, Hardfuzz achieves higher basic-block coverage in most targets and progresses faster in the early hours running on emulation. On hardware, it covers 14-40% more basic blocks after 24 hours across three programs with known faults. These results show that def-use guidance is practical on MCUs and improves exploration over control-flow-only feedback.

[FATA Seminar] Logics and Complexity Theory on Reals with Connections to Neural Networks

Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms (FATA)
Speaker: Jonni Virtema, FATA
Date: 27 January, 2026
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Room 422, SAWB

Descriptive complexity theory is a branch of complexity theory where one uses formal logics to characterise complexity classes. It was shown by Fagin in 1974 that a property of finite structures is decidable in NP if and only if the property is definable in existential second-order logic. The goal of this talk is to survey some adaptations of Fagin-style theorems in the setting of numerical data, and how this approach has recently been useful in charactering the training complexity of neural networks. In order to generalise Fagin’s theorem to the numerical setting one needs three generalisations: 1) Metafinite structures by Grädel and Gurevich (1998) adds an infinite numerical sort and weight functions to finite structure, 2) Blum-Shub-Smale machines (1989) generalise Turing machines by allowing direct computations with real numbers, 3) logics on metafinite structures utilise the numerical components therein. I will briefly mention the first Fagin-style theorem in this setting by Grädel and Meer (1995) that characterises NP on BSS-machines with a generalisation of existential second-order logic on R-structures (i.e. on metafinite structures where the numerical sort is the reals). Interestingly, on Boolean inputs, NP on BSS-machines coincides with the complexity class ExistsR (closure of the existential theory of the reals with polynomial time reductions) that has in recent years seen increasing interest. I will conclude by showing that by using a logical approach, we can pinpoint the complexity of training neural networks with diverse activation functions (AAAI 2024). In particular, I will show that the training complexity with the sigmoid activation function coincides with existential theory of the reals with the exponentiation function, whose decidability is an open problem posed by Tarski in the 1950s.

Aberdeen GameJam 2026

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 28 January, 2026
Time: 12:00 - 17:00
Location: Meston Building, University of Aberdeen, Meston Walk, Aberdeen, AB24 3UE

View full event details here. After the success of last year, University of Aberdeen’s School of Natural and Computing Sciences will be running Aberdeen GameJam 2026, this time in partnership with the History department! The event is open to students at University of Aberdeen and any other Scottish University. Each participant will receive an Aberdeen GameJam 2026 t-shirt and Amazon vouchers will be awarded to winners in each prize category. Additionally, ABVentures and Common Profyt Games have sponsored prizes, one for the Best Pitch, and one for a category yet to be announced! This year’s general theme is Games & History (so it might be a good idea to grab somebody who knows their history!) Participants will have a week to develop from scratch a game on a more specific theme that will be announced on Wednesday, 21 January 2026, followed by an in-person event starting at 9am on Wednesday, 28 January 2025 where teams will get feedback from judges. Teams will make a short presentation of their game starting at Noon and then judges will choose a winner for our prizes to be announced that afternoon.

Upwards Seminar: "IAA funding applications and projects"

Group: School of Computing Science
Speaker: Drs Javier Sanz-Cruzado Puig and Edmond Ho, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow
Date: 28 January, 2026
Time: 15:00 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Topic: IAA funding applications and projects

Speakers:

- Dr Javier Sanz-Cruzado Puig (SoCS, IDA, Postdoc)

- Dr Edmond Ho (SoCS, IDA, Senior Lecturer)

Location: In room SAWB 422 and on Zoom (https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/ j/82777296923?pwd=k5qqyTXrnqm2iF1MfUzY5tDpcs6a24.1).

What will this session be about?
 
It is up to the speakers to set the agenda for their Upwards talks, but the idea of this seminar instance is to hear lessons learned from applying for and driving Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) projects to make an impact with UofG research results, both from an academic and a postdoc researcher perspective: When does it make sense to apply for IAA funding? What is the funding useful for? What kind of impact are we talking about? How do you win the funding? How do successful IAA projects look? How can you sustain impact beyond an IAA project?

What is Upwards?
 
Upwards is the School of Computing Science’s research culture seminar, covering all facets of developing, conducting, and disseminating research and related topics (e.g. managing a research team, time management to do research, connections between research and teaching). It is open to everyone in the School, but a specific aim is to support ECR development and some sessions are aimed mainly at PGRs and/or PDRAs.

How are the seminars held?

Upwards seminars are held in person in the School to bring people together. In addition, the sessions are streamed on Zoom to allow to join remotely, if attending in person is not an option. To preserve the off-the- record atmosphere of the seminars, which allows speakers to speak more freely about their personal experiences, the seminars are not recorded and the slides are not shared. For the same reason, AI tools (such as those that automatically take meeting notes) will not be permitted. 

TBC

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Yuvraj Patel, University of Edinburgh
Date: 03 February, 2026
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

TBC

Esoteric Programming Languages

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Daniel Temkin, Esoteric Codes
Date: 10 February, 2026
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

Temkin challenges conventional definitions of

language, code, and computer, showing

the potential of esolangs—or esoteric

programming languages—as pure idea

art. The languages ask

programmers to write code in the form

of prayer to the Greek gods, or as a

pattern of empty folders, or to type code

in tandem with another programmer,

each with one hand on the keyboard,

their rhythm and synchrony signifying

computer action. 

Daniel Temkin makes photographic and computational art exploring logic and human irrationality. In his blog esoteric.codes, Temkin has interviewed esolangers and code artists since 2011, emphasizing the works' open-ended nature and its reliance on collaboration and community-building. Esoteric.codes is funded by Creative Capital and the Warhol Foundation and was written in residence at the New Museum's NEW INC incubator. ZKM exhibited the blog and commissioned videos of Temkin explaining esolang history for their Open Codes show in 2018-19. Temkin has also written about esolangs for Hyperallergic, Leonardo, ICP, and many others; his aesthetic theory of the form was published by Digital Humanities Quarterly. Recent exhibitions include Temkin's solo installation filling the lobby of the Museum of the Moving Image. His work was acquired by the Buffalo AKG Museum for their groundbreaking Electric Op show. He shows with Higher Pictures gallery in Brooklyn.

TBC

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Tao Chen, University of Birmingham
Date: 19 February, 2026
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

TBC

TBC

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Tom Spink, University of St. Andrews
Date: 24 February, 2026
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

TBC

TBC

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Youssef Moawad, University of Glasgow
Date: 03 March, 2026
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

TBC

TBC

Group: Systems Seminars
Speaker: Xiangmin XU, University of Glasgow
Date: 10 March, 2026
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Location: Room 422, Sir Alwyn Williams Building and Zoom

tbc

HRI 2026

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 16 March, 2026
Time: 00:00 - 00:00
Location: TBA

The ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is the premier venue for innovations on human-robot interaction. Sponsored by the ACM special interest groups on computer-human interaction (SIGCHI) and artificial intelligence (SIGAI) as well as the IEEE robotics and automation society (RAS), HRI brings together researchers spanning robotics, human-computer interaction, human factors, artificial intelligence, engineering, and social and behavioral sciences. The theme of the 21st edition of HRI is HRI Empowering Society. Our field has the potential to bring about positive change in many areas of our societies such as healthcare, transport, remote working, agriculture and industry. However, this change cannot happen if we do not engage properly with the end users who will potentially utilize robots in their jobs and daily lives. For this reason, HRI 2026 will focus on: 1) how we can ethically integrate robots in everyday processes without creating disruptions or inequalities, carefully thinking at the future of work and services; 2) how we can make them accessible to the general public (in terms of design, technical literacy and cost) with the final aim to make robots more willingly adopted as technological helpers. More information is available on the HRI 2026 website

SICSA Writing Retreat 2026

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 27 April, 2026
Time: 15:00 - 14:00
Location: Scottish Centre for Ecology and the Natural Environment (SCENE), G63 0JS

The 2026 SICSA Writing Retreat will bring together researchers from across Scotland for a two-day intensive writing event. The programme will consist of networking and skill sharing activities, in addition to individual and group writing blocks. Postdoctoral researchers from any SICSA institution are invited to apply to attend the writing retreat by completing the online form by 1 February 2026. Spaces are very limited and the SICSA Directorate will be judging applications based on clear and achievable writing plans, quality outputs and benefits to both individual researchers and wider groups. Proposals that involve and benefit multiple SICSA institutions are particularly encouraged. Apply Date Start: 15:00 Monday 27 April 2026 Finish: 14:00 Wednesday 29 April 2026 Location Scottish Centre for Ecology and the Natural Environment (SCENE)

EASE 2026: International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 09 June, 2026
Time: 01:00 - 01:00
Location: James McCune Smith Learning Hub, University Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8QW

EASE is an internationally leading venue for academics and practitioners to present and discuss their research on evidence-based software engineering, and its implications for software practice. EASE is ranked as A conference in CORE. The 30th edition of EASE will take place in Glasgow, Scotland. EASE 2026 welcomes high-quality submissions, describing original and unpublished research for the following tracks: full research papers, short papers & emerging results, industry, posters & vision, journal-first, and a doctoral symposium. There will also be co-located events, including workshops and tutorials, and a track planned for journal-first presentations. See conference website for submission tracks and deadlines. EASE 2026

S3CIX 2026 - Symposium and Summer School on Computational Interaction

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 16 June, 2026
Time: 01:00 - 01:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, University of Glasgow, 18 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8QN, United Kingdom

Registration for the 10th Symposium and Summer School on Computational Interaction will open 1 February and close 14 March 2026. View programme, event details and registration process at S³CIX 2026. This year S³CIX is expanding from a Summer School format to also include a 4 day long academic Symposium. We anticipate about 30 students and 40 academics and invited speakers to attend. There will also be two workshops. Computational interaction often involves elements from machine learning, signal processing, information theory, optimisation, inference, control theory and formal modelling. Computational interaction would typically involve at least one of: an explicit mathematical model of user-system behaviour; a way of updating that model with observed data from users; an algorithmic element that, using this model, can directly synthesise or adapt the design; a way of automating and instrumenting the modelling and design process; the ability to simulate or synthesise elements of the expected user-system behaviour.”

10th Summer School and Symposium on Computational Interaction (S³CIX)

Group: Inference, Dynamics and Interaction (IDI)
Speaker: multiple
Date: 20 June, 2026
Time: 09:00 - 16:00
Location: Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room

Welcome to the Symposium and Summer School on Computational Interaction! This year we are expanding from a Summer School format to also include a 4 day long academic Symposium. We anticipate about 30 students and 40 academics and invited speakers to attend. There will also be two workshops.

SPLV’26: Scottish Programming Languages and Verification Summer School 2026

Group: Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA)
Speaker: SICSA Event, SICSA
Date: 03 August, 2026
Time: 01:00 - 01:00
Location: TBA

The 2026 edition of SPLV will be held at the University of Glasgow, with the main courses running from within the Gilbert Scott Building. The school is aimed at PhD students in programming languages, verification and related areas. Researchers and practitioners are welcome, as are strong undergraduate and masters students with the support of a supervisor. Participants should have a background in computer science, mathematics or a related discipline. Prospective students may contact the organisers if they have any concerns about background knowledge. Registration will open March 2026. View full programme at SPLV 2026 | SPLV