Grigore RoÃÂu (born December 12, 1971) is a computer science professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a researcher in the Information Trust Institute. He is known for his contributions in Runtime Verification, the K framework, matching logic, automated coinduction., and for founding Runtime Verification, Inc. and Pi Squared, Inc..
RoÃÂu received a B.A. in Mathematics in 1995 and an M.S. in Fundamentals of Computing in 1996, both from the University of Bucharest, Romania, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2000 from the University of California at San Diego.
After completing his doctorate, he joined NASA in 2000 as a research scientist at the Ames Research Center, where he focused on formal specification and verification of flight and navigation software, coining the term "runtime verification" to enhance the reliability of mission-critical systems.
In 2002, he joined the department of computer science at the University of Illinois at UrbanaâÂÂChampaign as an assistant professor, later becoming an associate professor in 2008 and a full professor in 2014.
In 2003, RoÃÂu, alongside his student Traian Serbanuta, developed the K framework, providing an intuitive and modular approach to defining formal semantics for programming languages.
He founded Runtime Verification, Inc. in 2010, translating his research into practical applications by collaborating with industry leaders like Boeing and Toyota in the embedded systems domain.
In late 2023, he founded Pi Squared, Inc. as a spin-off from Runtime Verification, aiming to address challenges in programming language interoperability and computational trust.
RoÃÂu coined the term "Runtime Verification" together with Havelund as the name of a workshop started in 2001, aiming at addressing problems at the boundary between formal verification and testing. RoÃÂu and his collaborators introduced algorithms and techniques for parametric property monitoring, efficient monitor synthesis, runtime predictive analysis, and monitoring-oriented programming.
RoÃÂu created and led the design and development of the K framework, which is an executable semantic framework where programming languages, type systems, and formal analysis tools are defined using configurations, computations, and rewrite rules. Language tools such as interpreters, virtual machines, compilers, symbolic execution and formal verification tools, are automatically or semi-automatically generated by the K framework. Formal semantics of several known programming languages, such as C, Java, JavaScript, Python, and Ethereum Virtual Machine are defined using the K framework.
RoÃÂu introduced matching logic as a foundation for the K framework and for programming languages, specification, and verification. It is as expressive as first-order logic plus mathematical induction, and uses a compact notation to capture, as syntactic sugar, several formal systems of critical importance, such as algebraic specification and initial algebra semantics, first-order logic with least fixed points, typed or untyped lambda-calculi, dependent type systems, separation logic with recursive predicates, rewriting logic, Hoare logic, temporal logics, dynamic logic, and the modal ü-calculus.
RoÃÂu's Ph.D. thesis proposed circular coinduction as an automation of coinduction in the context of hidden logic. This was further generalized into a principle that unifies and automates proofs by both induction and coinduction, and has been implemented in Rocq, Isabelle/HOL, Dafny, and as part of the CIRC theorem prover.