PhD Candidate in Computer Science - Verified Microarchitectural Security

school of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at KTH

Project description

Third-cycle subject: Theoretical Computer Science

The School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at KTH Royal Institute of Technology is seeking a highly motivated PhD candidate in Computer Science with a focus on formal verification, hardware/software security, and microarchitectural side-channel analysis.

The PhD candidate will work within the research project µVerif: Rigorous Security Analysis of Computer Microarchitecture, jointly supervised by Associate Professor Roberto Guanciale and Assistant Professor Hamed Nemati. The student will be part of both research groups and embedded in a strong research environment in system security, formal methods, and low-level software and hardware verification.

The project focuses on securing modern processor microarchitectures. Aggressive optimisations such as speculative and out-of-order execution, which significantly improve performance, introduce serious security vulnerabilities (e.g., Spectre-like attacks). These vulnerabilities break the traditional assumption that security properties verified at the software level hold on real hardware.

This project aims to bridge the gap between formal program analysis and security on real hardware by: Developing formal models of speculation and microarchitectural information flow; Automatically extracting security-relevant models from RTL; Evaluating the techniques on open-source RISC-V processor cores. The long-term goal is to enable scalable, rigorous, and hardware-relevant verification of security properties for real-world systems.

The PhD candidate is expected to:

• Conduct research in formal methods and computer security.
• Develop formal models of microarchitectural behaviour and speculation.
• Design and implement analysis and model-extraction tools based on SMT solving and symbolic reasoning.
• Apply the developed techniques to open-source processor designs (e.g., RISC-V).

Supervision: Main supervisor Roberto Guanciale, Co-supervisor Hamed Nemati

Admission requirements

To be admitted to postgraduate education (Chapter 7, 39 § Swedish Higher Education Ordinance), the applicant must have basic eligibility in accordance with either of the following:

• passed a second cycle degree (for example a master’s degree), or
• completed course requirements of at least 240 higher education credits, of which at least 60 second-cycle higher education credits, or
• acquired, in some other way within or outside the country, substantially equivalent knowledge

In addition to the above, there is also a mandatory requirement for English equivalent to English B/6.

Selection

In order to succeed as a doctoral student at KTH you need to be goal oriented and persevering in your work. During the selection process, candidates will be assessed upon their ability to:

• independently pursue his or her work
• collaborate with others,
• have a professional approach and
• analyze and work with complex issues.
• Strong background in he following areas: Formal methods, Program analysis, Computer architecture, Computer security
• Programming skills (e.g., Python, OCaml, C/C++, or similar).
• Experience in one or more of the following areas:
  • SMT solvers and theorem provers.
  • Hardware description languages.
  • Symbolic execution or model checking.
  • Low-level systems programming.
  • Microarchitectural side channels and speculative execution.
• interest in combining theory with practical system-level work.

After the qualification requirements, great emphasis will be placed on personal skills. 

Target degree: Doctoral degree

Information regarding admission and employment

Only those admitted to postgraduate education may be employed as a doctoral student. The total length of employment may not be longer than what corresponds to full-time doctoral education in four years’ time. An employed doctoral student can, to a limited extent (maximum 20%), perform certain tasks within their role, e.g. training and administration. A new position as a doctoral student is for a maximum of one year, and then the employment may be renewed for a maximum of two years at a time. 

As a doctoral student, you are entitled to a workplace with many employee benefits and monthly salary according to KTH’s Doctoral student salary agreement . Read more about Doctoral studies (PhD) Sweden .

Union representatives

Contact information for  union representatives.

Doctoral Students’network (Students’ union on KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

Contact information for  doctoral section .

To apply for the position

Apply for the position and admission through KTH’s recruitment system. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure that the application is complete in accordance with the instructions in the advertisement.

Applications must be received at the last closing date at midnight, CET/CEST (Central European Time/Central European Summer Time).

Applications must include the following elements:

• CV including your relevant professional experience and knowledge.
• Application letter with a brief description of why you want to pursue research studies, about what your academic interests are and how they relate to your previous studies and future goals. (Maximum 2 pages long)
• Copies of diplomas and grades from previous university studies and certificates of fulfilled language requirements (see above) . Translations into English or Swedish if the original document is not issued in one of these languages.Copies of originals must be certified .
• Representative publications or technical reports. For longer documents, please provide a summary (abstract) and a web link to the full text.

Other information

For information about processing of personal data in the recruitment process.

It may be the case that a position at KTH is classified as a security-sensitive role in accordance with the Protective Security Act (2018:585). If this applies to the specific position, a security clearance will be conducted for the applicant in accordance with the same law with the applicant’s consent. In such cases, a prerequisite for employment is that the applicant is approved following the security clearance.

We firmly decline all contact with staffing and recruitment agencies and job ad salespersons.

Disclaimer: In case of discrepancy between the Swedish original and the English translation of the job announcement, the Swedish version takes precedence.

 

 

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Type of employment

Temporary position

Contract type

Full time

Full-time equivalent

100%

First day of employment

According to agreement

Salary

Monthly salary according to KTH’s doctoral student salary agreement

Number of positions

1

Location

Stockholm

County

Stockholms län

Country

Sweden

Reference number

PA-2026-0694

Published

12.Mar.2026

Last application date

02.Apr.2026

Contact

Roberto Guanciale robertogkth.se