Rate My Professor Bernhard Scholz

Bernhard Scholz is a Full Professor in the School of Computer Science within the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sydney, a position he has held since January 2021. He also serves as Chief Research Officer for the Fantom Foundation since May 2022. Scholz earned his Dipl.-Ing. (equivalent to MEng) in 1997 and Dr. techn. (equivalent to PhD) in 2001 from Vienna University of Technology. His academic career at the University of Sydney began in February 2004 as a Lecturer in the School of Information Technologies, progressing to Senior Lecturer from January 2008 to December 2012, Associate Professor from January 2013 to December 2020, and Full Professor thereafter. Earlier roles include Universitätsassistent (equivalent to Assistant Professor) at Vienna University of Technology from October 1999 to September 2003, Research Assistant at the University of Vienna from July 1998 to June 1999, and Programmer and Analyst at Baring Asset Management in London from February 1997 to May 1998. Scholz has held visiting positions, including Visiting Professor at Sun Microsystems Laboratories from April 2007 to February 2008, Adjunct Professor at Yonsei University in Seoul from March 2009 to October 2011, Visiting Professor at the University of Victoria in Canada during 2002-2003, and Consulting Member of Staff at Oracle Labs from April 2013 to December 2015.

Scholz's research focuses on programming languages. He is the creator of Soufflé, a Datalog-based language for static program analysis adopted by companies including Oracle and Amazon. He co-initiated the Parfait bug-checking tool at Oracle, utilized by thousands of developers, and introduced the Partitioned Boolean Quadratic Problem (PBQP) approach for compiler construction, implemented in compilers such as LLVM. His influential publications include 'MadMax: Surviving out-of-gas conditions in Ethereum smart contracts' (2018), 'Vandal: A scalable security analysis framework for smart contracts' (2018), 'Soufflé: On Synthesis of Program Analyzers' (2016), 'Ethainter: A smart contract security analyzer for composite vulnerabilities' (2020), and 'Gigahorse: Thorough, declarative decompilation of smart contracts' (2019). These works have garnered significant citations and appear in top venues like POPL and PLDI, demonstrating his impact on program analysis, smart contract security, and compiler optimization.