Duncan Paul Attard Profile

After obtaining a BSc (Hons) degree in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from the University of Malta, I pursued a seven-year software development career.

I have since completed a PhD in Computer Science from Reykjavík University (Iceland) and the University of Malta (Malta). I finished my first postdoctoral research experience in the Programming Languages Theme at the University of Glasgow in the UK.

I am in my second postdoctoral position in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Malta, working with Adrian Francalanza.

Research interests

Runtime monitoring and verification of concurrent and distributed systems • automated synthesis of efficient runtime monitors • software engineering for scalability and partial failure in distributed systems

Programming language semantics • concurrent languages • formal modelling and verification of systems • resource usage analysis • multi-agent systems

Publications

Journals

A Monitoring Tool for Linear-Time μHML in SCP 2024
with Aceto, L., Achilleos, A., Exibard, L., Francalanza, A., Ingólfsdóttir, A.

Artefact

Conferences

Monitorability for the Modal µ-Calculus over Systems with Data: From Practice to Theory in CONCUR 2025
with Aceto, L., Achilleos, A., Exibard, L., Francalanza, A., Ingólfsdóttir, A., Lehtinen, K.

Extended Version
Runtime Instrumentation for Reactive Components in ECOOP 2024
with Aceto, L., Francalanza, A., Ingólfsdóttir, A.

Distinguished artefact • Extended Version • Technical Report • Artefact • Slides
Special Delivery: Programming with Mailbox Types in ICFP 2023
with Fowler, S., Sowul, F., Gay, S. J., Trinder, P.
A Monitoring Tool for Linear-Time μHML in COORDINATION 2022
with Aceto, L., Achilleos, A., Exibard, L., Francalanza, A., Ingólfsdóttir, A.

Best COORDINATION paper • Best overall paper • Artefact • Slides
Better Late Than Never or: Verifying Asynchronous Components at Runtime in FORTE 2021
with Aceto, L., Achilleos, A., Francalanza, A., Ingólfsdóttir, A., Lehtinen, K.

Tutorial 1 2 3 • Artefact
On Benchmarking for Concurrent Runtime Verification in FASE 2021
with Aceto, L., Francalanza, A., Ingólfsdóttir A.

Slides
A Foundation for Runtime Monitoring in RV 2017
with Francalanza, A., Aceto, L., Achilleos, A., Cassar, I., Della Monica, D., Ingólfsdóttir, A.
Trace Partitioning and Local Monitoring for Asynchronous Components in SEFM 2017
with Francalanza, A.

Slides
A Monitoring Tool for a Branching-Time Logic in RV 2016
with Francalanza, A.

Artefact • Slides

Workshops

Reversible Computation vs. Runtime Adaptation in Industrial IoT Systems in CORSE 2025
with Bugeja, K., Francalanza, A., Galea, M., Tabone, G., Zahra, G.

Slides
Graft: general purpose raft consensus in Elixir in Erlang Workshop 2021
with Le Brun, M. A., Francalanza, A.
A Suite of Monitoring Tools for Erlang in RV-CuBES 2017
with Cassar, I., Francalanza, A., Aceto, L., Ingólfsdóttir, A.
A Generic Instrumentation Tool for Erlang in RV-CuBES 2017
with Cassar, I., Francalanza, A., Aceto, L., Ingólfsdóttir, A.

Book chapters

A Runtime Monitoring Tool for Actor-Based Systems in BETTY COST Action 2017
with Cassar, I., Francalanza, A., Aceto, L., Ingólfsdóttir, A.

Artefact

Theseses

Runtime Monitoring for Asynchronous Reactive Components, PhD thesis
advised by Francalanza, A., Aceto, L., Ingólfsdóttir, A.
Towards Modular Monitoring for Concurrent Systems, MSc thesis
supervised by Francalanza, A.
A Lexicon Server Toolkit for Maltese, BSc (Hons.) undergraduate thesis
supervised by Rosner, M., Abela, J.

Talks

CodeBEAM 2024 - The Erlang and Elixir Conference in Europe
Co-speaker

Slides
PLAID 2024 - 1st Workshop on Principles, Theory, and Practice for Decentralised Applications
Keynote

Slides
ICE 2023 - 16th Interaction and Concurrency Experience
Oral communication

Slides

Community

Editor

SCP 2026 - Science of Computer Programming (special issue for selected software aretefact from the papers of DisCoTec 2025)
Guest editor
SCP 2025 - Science of Computer Programming (special issue for selected software aretefact from the papers of DisCoTec 2024)
Guest editor

Committees

COORDINATION 2026 - 28th International Conference on Coordination Models and Languages
Programme committee member
COORDINATION 2025 - 27th International Conference on Coordination Models and Languages
Artefact evaluation committee chair
Erlang 2024 - 23th ACM SIGPLAN Erlang Workshop
Programme committee member
FORTE 2024 - 44th International Conference on Formal Techniques for Distributed Objects, Components, and Systems
Artefact evaluation committee co-chair, Programme committee member
ICE 2023 - 16th Interaction and Concurrency Experience
Programme committee member
ICE 2022 - 15th Interaction and Concurrency Experience
Programme committee member
VORTEX 2022 - 4th Workshop on Verification and Monitoring at Runtime Execution
Workshop programme committee member and organiser
DisCoTec 2021 - 16th Federated Conference on Distributed Computing Techniques
Workshops chair and organiser
DisCoTec 2020 - 15th Federated Conference on Distributed Computing Techniques
Workshops chair and organiser

Sub reviewing

SEFM 2023 • FORTE 2023 • TACAS Tools 2022 • RV 2021 • JOT (special issue for VORTEX 2022) • NWPT 2019 • RV 2018 • ICTAC 2018 • SEFM 2017

Teaching

Courses

CPS2001 - Programming Paradigms (joint with Adrian Francalanza)
University of Malta • Semester 1, 2017 - present
Web Development in Python
Reykjavík University • Semester 3, 2018 - 2019

Tutorials

CPS2001 - Programming Paradigms
University of Malta • Semester 1, 2017 - 2026
CPS3238 - Principles of Programming Languages
University of Malta • Semester 1, 2018 - 2020
CPS1011 - Programming Principles in C
University of Malta • Semester 1, 2015 - 2016

Open source

Past and ongoing development work

detectEr

An asynchronous runtime verification tool written for programs developed in the Erlang language.
Programming Paradigms

Tutorials, examples and accompanying material for the CPS2001 - Programming Paradigms course given at UM.
BonBon

A minimalistic and clean L^AT_EX theme for Beamer.