Bjarte M. Østvold

Photo
Assistant Research Director, Norwegian Computing Center
dr.ing., NTNU, 1999
Email: bjarte@nr.no
Teams phone: +47 22 85 26 22; mobile phone: +47 97 64 73 89; switchboard: +47 22 85 25 00
Postal address:
Norsk Regnesentral / Norwegian Computing Center
PO Box 114 Blindern
NO-0314 Oslo, Norway

Research

I strongly believe in applying computer science theory to help build better software.

Research interests:

List of publications at Google Scholar and DBLP.

Awards

ECOOP 2009 Best Paper (with Einar W. Høst)

Projects

I'm currently mainly working in the following projects:

In 2017, I took part in organising the 50 years anniversary of Simula, the first object-oriented programming language.

Summer interns

I've been lucky to have these very talented students working with me as summer interns:

Typically, NR will put out a call for summer internships in January at Jobbnorge.

Supervision

September 2023: I have an open master's thesis topic at Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo: Digitalization-friendly regulation: transforming and reasoning about legislative text

Current students

Sean Lapalus, A domain-specific language for real-estate floor plans (working title), UiO, 2024-. Studying towards degree: Master. Supervisors: Martin Steffen, Bjarte M. Østvold

Former students

Feiyang Tang, Analyzing Privacy in Software, NTNU, 2024. Awarded degree: PhD. Supervisors: Bjarte M. Østvold, Staal A. Vinterbo. Now at Software Improvement Group, the Netherlands.

Sindre Toft Nordal, Biometric authentication of smartphone users using accelerometer data, NTNU, 2019. Awareded degree: bachelor. Supervisors: Bjarte M. Østvold, Edvard K. Karlsen, and Ole Christian Eidheim.

Petter Iversen, Specification-based security analysis of REST APIs, NTNU, 2018. Awarded degree: master. Supervisors: Edvard K. Karlsen, Jingyue Li, Bjarte M. Østvold.

Edvard K. Karlsen, Simple static analysis techniques for Java: Using latent meaning to find security bugs, NTNU, 2015. Awarded degree: master. Supervisors: Torbjørn Skramstad and Bjarte M. Østvold. Now at Kantega.

Edvard K. Karlsen, Abstract flow: A model for essential semantics of Java methods, Sør-Trøndelag University College, 2012. Awarded degree: bachelor.

Einar W. Høst, Meaningful Method Names, UiO, 2011. Awarded degree: phd. Main supervisor: Bjarte M. Østvold; co-supervisor: Gerardo Schneider. Now at NAV.

Henrik Berg, Evolutionary Machine Learning: Neutrality, Diversity and Applications, UiO, 2009. Main supervisor: Roland Olsson; co-supervisors: Bjarte M. Østvold, Olaf Owe. Awarded degree: phd. Now at FFI.

Steingrim Dovland, Liberating coroutines: Combining sequential and parallel execution, UiO, 2006. Awarded degree: master. Now at Nets.

Hung Huynh, Comparing Java programs: syntactic and contextual semantic differences, UiO, 2005. Awarded degree: siviling. Went to Selvaag BlueThink.

Jørgen Hermanrud Fjeld, Compiling Creol Safely, UiO, 2005. Awarded degree: siviling. Supervisors: Einar Broch Johnsen and Bjarte M. Østvold. Went to Linpro.

Erling Holmqvist, A structural approach to web page partitioning, UiO, 2005. Awarded degree: master. Went to Esito AS.

Arild B. Torjusen, A formal and executable model for comparing XML documents, UiO, 2003. Awarded degree: cand. scient. Now at DNV.

Abbreviations: NTNU = Norwegian University of Science and Technology. UiO = University of Oslo.

Science and politics

Technology is not neutral, and what we choose to work on—as researchers and as developers—matters.

After nearly two decades as a member, I did not renew my ACM membership in 2018. It started with the December 2015 issues of Communications where the editor was unable to argue for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs). I wrote a letter to the editor arguing that working on such weapons was inconsistent with the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. Then, in 2018, the code was revised to, among other things, include the concept of intentional harm (Principle 1.2). In my view the revised code no longer prevents working on LAWs, which I find preposterous.

Quote

You think you know when you learn, are more sure when you can write,
even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program. -- Alan J. Perlis


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