About Me
I am an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. My research interests are in logic, automata theory, and theoretical formal methods.
Previously, I was a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University, working with Professor Alexandra Silva, and a Faculty Fellow/Assistant Professor at the Courant Institute, New York University.
I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University in August 2025, advised by Professor Thomas Wies. A summary of my dissertation was invited to appear in the EATCS Bulletin. I received my B.S. (Honours) from Yale-NUS College in May 2019.
Between Yale-NUS and NYU, I spent a year verifying blockchain consensus protocols at Runtime Verification. I spent two summers in graduate school interning at Amazon's Automated Reasoning Group.
Publications
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Decision Problems for Global Protocol Specifications
Elaine Li
EATCS Bulletin No 149 -
Implementability of Global Distributed Protocols modulo Network Architectures
Elaine Li and Thomas Wies
PLDI 2026 -
Decision Problems for Global Protocol Specifications
Elaine Li
Ph.D. Thesis, 2025
Janet Fabri Prize -
Certified Implementability of Global Multiparty Protocols
Elaine Li and Thomas Wies
ITP 2025 -
Sprout: A Verifier for Symbolic Multiparty Protocols
Elaine Li, Felix Stutz, Thomas Wies and Damien Zufferey
CAV 2025 -
Characterizing Implementability of Global Protocols with Infinite States and Data
Elaine Li, Felix Stutz, Thomas Wies and Damien Zufferey
OOPSLA 2025 -
Deciding Subtyping for Asynchronous Multiparty Sessions
Elaine Li, Felix Stutz, and Thomas Wies
ESOP 2024 -
Complete Multiparty Session Type Projection with Automata
Elaine Li, Felix Stutz, Thomas Wies and Damien Zufferey
CAV 2023 -
Formalizing Correct-by-Construction Casper in Coq
Elaine Li, Traian Serbanuta, Denisa Diaconescu, Vlad Zamfir, and Grigore Rosu
ICBC 2020 -
Pumping, With or Without Choice
Aquinas Hobor, Elaine Li and Frank Stephan
APLAS 2019 -
Formalizing Block Pumpable Language Theory
Elaine Li
Yale-NUS College Capstone Thesis, 2019
Awards and Honors
- NYU Courant Janet Fabri Prize
- 2026
- NYU Courant Sandra Bleistein Prize
- 2024
- NYU GSAS Dean's Dissertation Fellowship
- 2023
- CAV VMW Scholarship
- 2023
- NYU GSAS MacCracken Fellowship
- 2020-2025
- Helmut Veith Scholarship (declined)
- 2019
Invited Talks
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Implementability of Global Protocols modulo Network Architectures
- Verification of Distributed Systems Workshop (June 2026)
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Implementability of Global Protocols
- Dagstuhl Seminar 26071: Behavioural Types for Resilience (February 2026)
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Implementability and Synthesis of Global Protocols
- Princeton University PL Seminar (April 2025)
- Columbia University Systems seminar (February 2025)
- Boston University POPV seminar (October 2024)
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Synthesizing Distributed Protocols from Global Session Types
- Simons Institute: Synthesis of Models and Systems (July 2024)
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Multiparty Session Type Projection and Subtyping with Automata
- UPenn PLClub (April 2024)
- University of Luxembourg (April 2024)
- Cornell PLDG (March 2024)
- UCSC LSD seminar (October 2023)
Professional Activities
- Program Committee
- ITP 2027, CAV 2027, ESOP 2027
- Rocqshop 2026, ICE 2026, EMSOFT 2026, CAV 2026
- PLACES 2025
- Dafny 2024
- External Reviewer
- LICS 2026
- ICLP 2025
- FMCAD 2024
Teaching
- Barnard College
- COMS BC1014: Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Java (Fall 2026)
- NYU
- CSCI-UA.0480: Special Topics: Principles of Programming Languages (Spring 2026)
Miscellaneous
- Remy pictures:
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