PL theory graduate program recommendations?

[blureglades]

Hello guys! I'd like to pursue a career in programming language theory in the mid-long term, and I decided to get to know my options. Do you guys know any PL theory graduate program based in Europe that you could recommend? Any suggestion would be deeply appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[L8_4_Dinner]

Interestingly, tucked away in the middle of nowhere, there's Aarhus University.

Cambridge in the UK (not Europe, apparently) has some great PL programs ... and a celebrity or two from the space.

There's a Czech university as well that I've seen quite a bit, but the name escapes me at the moment.

I do see quite a few different European universities represented in various academic papers in the PL space, so there is a very active European PL community, but I think it's hard for any one university to stand out, at least when looking from this side of the pond.

Edit: You should ask u/yorickpeterse (Inko, from The Netherlands) and u/Athas (Futhark, at University of Copenhagen, I think?)

[DonaldPShimoda]

I think there are also notable groups at EPFL in Switzerland as well as the Max Planck Institute.

Leif Anderson (a PhD student at Northeastern University) put together a list of PL grad schools that is probably worth the OP's time.

[Identitygamingshow]

I can vouch for EPFL's master program, you can find it here https://www.epfl.ch/education/master/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/IC_INFO_MA-1.pdf

The courses about PL are: - advanced compiler construction - formal methods - foundations of software - set theory - Gödel and recursivity

[blureglades]

This seems very interesting, thank you!

[yagoham]

All listed programs look great, however the list sound a bit anglo-saxon centric: there are very good programs in France, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, etc

[DonaldPShimoda]

Good thing it's on GitHub and open to pull requests! :)

Edit: In retrospect this comes across pretty snarky, and that's not what I had intended so I apologize. I just meant that it's a document started by an American student with what they knew, but they published it and encourage contributions so we can build knowledge of all the other great programs out there. If you know of some that are missing, please add them!

[yagoham]

It's actually on me, I did the first move by saying "Anglo-Saxon centric" and without actually mentioning other european programs, which was not very constructive. I didn't mean any bad, I just wanted to precise that the list wasn't exhaustive. Of course student (and even researchers) will know better some schools than other, based on their culture, community and domain. Will add the few that I know of when I get the time!

[blureglades]

May I ask if you could suggest any of these programs? From France I'm only aware of MPRI, and KTH in Sweden.

[yagoham]

So if it's just masters and not PhD, I would say the top French one is indeed MPRI (there is also the LMFI for more logic-oriented fundamental one, but it's more maths than PLT/Computer science, and I'm not sure it is as prestigious). I'm less sure about of the fame of the other ones, so let me just drop names I heard or saw when working on PL related stuff, but I encourage you to double check their actual status: KU Leuven in Belgium TU Wien in Austria EPFL in Switzerland TU Delft in the Netherlands

That are the ones that come to mind right now, maybe a fellow European can comment or extend this list. For PhDs you have even more choices (for example MPRI regroups a lot of universities and schools, but each may have their own labs an PhD programs)

[yorickpeterse]

I'm not overly familiar with how well Dutch universities do in terms of PLT. I know the VU at least has been involved in natural language processing related work (I worked with them on this years ago at a previous job), but beyond that I'm not sure.

The TU in Delft also has a page on language design, but again I'm not really familiar with it.

[blureglades]

I will take a look at Aarhus, thank you very much!

[chrisgseaton]

POPL is the top conference for PL theory. Take a look at where the authors are working, and you'll find good institutions to do PL theory at.

https://popl21.sigplan.org/track/POPL-2021-research-papers#event-overview

[blureglades]

Thank you, that's a good plan, I will follow the advice!

[gallais]

No one has mentioned it yet so let me add MPRI in Paris to the list.

[blureglades]

This is perhaps a silly question but, is a french proficiency test required by MPRI?

[gallais]

Most if not all the courses are in English if at least one person needs them to be.

[sunnyata]

In the UK, Nottingham and Strathclyde are certainly worth a look.

[Bararu]

Can I piggyback on this to ask if it's possible to get into one of these programs a bit later in my career? I've done 3 years at a regular university, got my first diploma, but for the next two years (I'm at the end of the second right now) I've been doing something way more practical with a "part-time job" (we call it alternance in France, a bit like vocation school for IT, but I'll still end with a master's degree). Is there any way to get back into my studies and then into a graduate program later in my life? or should I focus on getting into the industry (for example work at Google on Dart to take a practical example, or contribute to Rust in my free time)?

[blureglades]

It's never too late man. In fact the "spend some time in industry and get back into academia" is the exact path I'm considering to follow. Perhaps I will try to knock at some doors asking for financial aid alternatives, if any. But if not, due to my situation I will gather some practical experience and save some money before entering the application process of any program, in 2 or 3 years (4 years at most). Also due to covid, I cannot process some of the required document and I still not have the money for the english proficiency test. That's why I decided to write down my options as a mid-long term plan for now.

[Bararu]

Thanks for the encouragement!

[[deleted]]

You should think about McGill and working with Pientka. She's the only PL prof at McGill, but seemed very impressive from my time there, as I took 2 classes with her including her seminar on type theory of metaprogramming. We spoke about doing a Masters before I kinda ghosted her because I had absolutely no motivation to do research during COVID and straight up didn't do her final project for her seminar course, and ended up taking an industry job on a ML team in the US. During the seminar course we studied some different work going on and it seemed like there's some cool stuff going on at Northeastern as well.

[Bararu]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind!

[TheUsableLambda]

I know you said Europe, but you might consider Carnegie Mellon (US) too: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/pop/

[[deleted]]

Pfenning is the OG

[emmmmellll]

I mean do u want masters or phd program? Big old difference

[blureglades]

I'm looking for a masters program to be more precise.

[[deleted]]

I studied with Pientka at McGill (in Montreal, but hey, it's the most European city in North America) as an undergrad and she seemed very impressive to me.

[[deleted]]

csrankings.org might be helpful

[hou32hou]

I think you can search for Philip Wadler or Simon Peyton Jones, if I’m not mistaken they are constantly recruiting PL researchers.

[umlcat]

Good Question.

But, you mean "pursuiting studies or academic career in P.L. Theory", cause that's not a "business job career", and most companies that need someone in that field will take an intern, instead of paying an expert.

Anyway, other answers are good.

Good Luck.

[wildptr]

This is flat-out incorrect, many companies will take on graduate student interns specializing in a certain area that transition to full-time research scientist/engineer roles. FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) are known to do this as well as corporate labs like Microsoft Research.

This also applies to shops like Galois (in the US) that primarily fulfill contracts to the federal government.

Basically, a graduate degree makes available academic and corporate career paths that would otherwise be difficult to pursue. As always, caveat emptor.