University of Glasgow, 11th to 14th August 2025

Last week, I had an incredible time at the Institute on Verified Trustworthy Software Systems (VeTSS) Summer School at the University of Glasgow. It was a fantastic experience that truly expanded my knowledge, even though I’m already in this field. The VeTSS team did an amazing job of organising everything. We had plenty of time to connect with other attendees, share insights about our research, and learn about the incredible work other PhD students are doing.

The school’s focus on the theory and practice of verification was spot on. We covered so many interesting topics like program synthesis, model checking, and functional programming. A couple of sessions stood out for me:

– Lean Programming: Dr. Sebastian Ullrich and Dr. Joachim Breitner gave an incredible session on Lean, a functional programming language that’s also an interactive theorem prover. Dr. Breitner, who also joined Lean FRO, brought his expertise in Haskell and interactive theorem proving to the session. He even made us laugh with his humour—a true “nerd” with a fun side!

– Algebraic Effects: Dr. Nicolas Wu from Imperial College London gave a fascinating talk on algebraic effects. He took us through the history of functional programming and showed how these concepts are used in Haskell, where he also introduced the concept of a Monad to handle side effects. I only wish the session could have been longer!

Beyond the sessions, the social events were a highlight ✨ . It was a great chance to network and make new friends. I had a wonderful time with Ari Hernawan, Benedict Bunting, Jessica Richards, and a few more students from the University of Oxford during our dinner and pizza party. I also loved spending time with my girls’ group: Monique Wangyi Dai from the The University of Hong Kong, Sidra A. from the University of West London, and Ayse Irmak Ercevik & Yazhuo Cao from King’s College London. We had so much fun sharing dinners and laughs after the official sessions. Ayse and Yazhuo were especially sweet—they gave me a small gift of shortbread from a popular Glasgow shop on the last day. I’m so grateful to have met such lovely people from King’s College London!

Finally, a massive thank you to the VeTSS directors, Prof. Brijesh Dongol and Dr. Azalea Raad, and the program managers, Teresa Carbajo Garcia and Ling Zhang. Their hard work made the school a truly memorable experience. And a big thanks to Kai Feng, a PhD student at the University of Glasgow, for his warm welcome and for giving us great recommendations around campus.

I highly recommend the VeTSS summer school to any PhD student or researcher in this field. It’s a week you won’t forget 🤗!

By Hannah Oh