Ferhat Erata

Ferhat Erata

PhD Candidate @Yale | Applied Scientist Intern @Amazon AI

Yale University

Amazon AI

Biography

I am pursuing a PhD in Computer Science at Yale University under the guidance of Ruzica Piskac and Jakub Szefer. My research focuses on the learning of randomized reductions and program properties (Bitween), with applications in hardware security, private computation, and quantum circuits.

Currently, I am an Applied Scientist Intern at the Automated Reasoning Group at AWS, where I work on Neuro-Symbolic AI to prevent factual errors caused by LLM hallucinations using mathematically sound Automated Reasoning checks (Amazon Bedrock Guardrails).

During my PhD, I investigated side-channel vulnerabilities in low-level post-quantum cryptographic code (EuroS&P 2023) and reverse-engineered quantum circuits from power traces (CHES 2024, CCS 2023). I also explored quantum fault injections and malware (QCE 2024, HOST 2023), analyzed non-functional behaviors of intermittent programs (TECS 2023), developed software countermeasures using randomized reductions (ICCAD 2024), and surveyed security verification techniques (JETC 2023).

Before my PhD, I applied formal methods in industry as a research software engineer through my start-up, contributing to several research collaborations (COMPSAC 2019, FSE 2018, FSE 2017, ASE 2017, SAC 2017).

Interests
  • Neuro-Symbolic AI
  • Automated Reasoning
  • Machine Learning
  • AI4Code
  • Security & Privacy
Education
  • PhD in Computer Science, 2025

    Yale University, CT, US

  • MSc, MPhil in Computer Science

    Yale University, CT, US

  • MSc in Information Technologies

    Ege University, Izmir, TR

  • BSc in Computer Science

    Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, TR

Publications

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(2025). Learning Randomized Reductions and Program Properties.

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(2024). Quantum Circuit Reconstruction from Power Side-Channel Attacks on Quantum Computer Controllers. IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (TCHES).

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(2024). Systematic Use of Random Self-Reducibility against Physical Attacks. IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD).

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(2024). Classification of Quantum Computer Fault Injection Attacks. IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE).

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(2023). Exploration of Power Side-Channel Vulnerabilities in Quantum Computer Controllers. ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS).

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(2023). Towards Automated Detection of Single-Trace Side-Channel Vulnerabilities in Constant-Time Cryptographic Code. European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P).

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(2023). ETAP: Energy-aware timing analysis of intermittent programs. ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (TECS).

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(2023). Survey of approaches and techniques for security verification of computer systems. ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems (JETC).

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(2023). AdapTV: A Model-Based Test Adaptation Approach for End-to-End User Interface Testing of Smart TVs. IEEE Access.

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(2023). Design of Quantum Computer Antivirus. International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST).

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(2020). A survey on the practical use of UML for different software architecture viewpoints. Information and Software Technology.

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(2020). Automated reasoning framework for traceability management of system of systems. Science of Computer Programming.

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(2019). Integrating static code analysis toolchains. IEEE 43rd Annual Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC).

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(2018). AlloyInEcore: embedding of first-order relational logic into meta-object facility for automated model reasoning. Proceedings of Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE).

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(2017). A tool for automated reasoning about traces based on configurable formal semantics. Proceedings of Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE).

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(2017). ModelWriter: Text and model-synchronized document engineering platform. 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE).

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Experience

 
 
 
 
 
Yale University
Graduate Research Assistant & Teaching Fellow
June 2020 – Present New Haven, CT, US

Research Asistant:

Teaching Asistant:

 
 
 
 
 
Amazon AI
Applied Scientist Intern
May 2024 – Present New York, NY, US
Automated Reasoning Group (ARG) – Working on a Neuro-Symbolic method to capture symbolic knowledge and detect hallucinations of LLMs in logical reasoning.
 
 
 
 
 
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Applied Scientist Intern
May 2023 – January 2024 New York, NY, US
Automated Reasoning Group (ARG) – Developed a scheduler framework for randomized testing, model-based testing, and conformance checking of distributed AWS Services in Rust.
 
 
 
 
 
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Applied Scientist Intern
June 2022 – January 2023 New York, NY, US
Automated Reasoning Group (ARG) – Developed a decision procedure in Rust programming languages for checking linearizability of distributed systems.
 
 
 
 
 
ITEA4 Project: XIVT--eXcellence In Variant Testing
National Consortium Leader, Software Research Engineer
October 2018 – August 2019 Ege University, Izmir, TR
I developed AlloyInEcore for Automated Model Reasoning from Alloy Specifications. Published in FSE 2018 and contributed to a Model-based Testing framework IEEE Access.
 
 
 
 
 
ITEA3 Project: ASSUME--Safe & Secure Mobility Evolution
National Consortium Leader, Software Research Engineer
September 2015 – December 2018 Ege University, Izmir, TR
I developed Tarski Automated Reasoning tool for Traces based on Formal Semantics. Published in FSE 2017 and SAC 2017.
 
 
 
 
 
ITEA2 Project: Text & Model-Synchronized Document Engineering
Project Leader, Software Research Engineer
January 2014 – September 2017 Ege University, Izmir, TR
I led the development of ModelWriter–Text and model-synchronization engineering platform. Published in ASE 2017.

Service

 
 
 
 
 
European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST)
Management Committee Member
December 2017 – January 2019
 
 
 
 
 
European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST)
Management Committee Member
January 2015 – January 2019

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