Pawel Sobocinski
| Email: | [email protected] |
| Bibliometrics: | Google Scholar, DBLP |
| Official CV: | ETIS |
I am Professor of Trustworthy Software Technologies at TalTech. I lead the Laboratory for Compositional Systems and Methods. I am currently PI of the Estonian Research Council grant PRG3215, Post Cartesian Programming - Logic, Probability and Computation with String Diagrams. I take part in CHESS, the Cyber-security Excellence Hub in Estonia and South Moravia, funded by the European Commission. I am also a TalTech PI of EXAI, the Estonian Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence, financed by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research.
My research can be understood as the study of how to connect open systems (of various kinds: programs, networks, computing devices, circuits, ...) in a way that the description of the connections--i.e. the language that we describe subsystems and how to compose them---is compatible with the behaviour of the system. Therefore, what can be observed of the global system is entirely derivable from the observations made of the component subsystems. This is because each composition operation in the language we use for describing systems gives rise to an analogous operation on the behaviours. This property is known as compositionality.
I focus on compositional modelling of systems, developing the underlying mathematics (usually category theory), and applying it to real-life problems such as verification. I work on graph transformation, Petri nets, process algebras, dynamical and cyberphysical systems, as well as mainstream concurrent programming. Some time ago I wrote the Graphical Linear Algebra blog about rediscovering linear algebra in a compositional way, with string diagrams.
- Upcoming meetings
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- 9th International Conference on Applied Category Theory (ACT 2026), Conference Chair, Tallinn, Estonia, July 6-10, 2026
- 15th International Conference on the Theory and Application of Diagrams (DIAGRAMS 2026), General Chair, Tallinn, Estonia, August 24-28, 2026
- Recent meetings
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- 51st EATCS International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2024), Programme Chair, Tallinn, Estonia, July 8-12, 2024
- 39th Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS 2024), Local Organiser, Tallinn, Estonia, July 8-11, 2024
- I gave a talk at European Leadership in Secure and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, Brussels, on February 14, 2024
- I was a panelist at the UK Science and Innovation Network Northern Regional AI workshop at the British Embassy in Helsinki on December 14, 2023
- 26th International Conference on Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures (FoSSaCS 2023), co-chair (with Orna Kupferman), Paris, France
- Organisations
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- Member of Expert Panel on Computer Science and Informatics, National Science Centre NCN, Poland
- Associate Editor, Compositionality
- Associate Editor, Mathematical Structures in Computer Science
- Associate Editor, Logical Methods in Computer Science
- IFIP Working Group 2.2, Formal Description of Programming Concepts
- IFIP Working Group 1.3, Foundations of System Specification
- ACM SigLOG
- Programme committees
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2026
- 41st Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS 2026)
- 23rd International Conference on Quantum Physics and Logic (QPL 2026)
- 29th International Conference on Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures (FoSSaCS 2026)
2025
- 22nd International Conference on Quantum Physics and Logic (QPL 2025)
- 11th Conference on Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science (CALCO 2025)
2024
- PhD students
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2011-15 Owen Stephens, Compositional Specification and Reachability Checking of Net Systems, ECS, University of Southampton, with Julian Rathke 2012-15 Fabio Zanasi, Interacting Hopf Algebras: the Theory of Linear Systems, Ecole Normale Supérieure Lyon, with Filippo Bonchi 2016-20 Jens Seeber, Logical Completeness for String Diagrams, IMT School for Advances Studies, Lucca, with Filippo Bonchi 2019-2023 Mario Román, Monoidal Context Theory, TalTech 2019-2023 Elena di Lavore, Monoidal Width, TalTech 2019-2024 Chad Nester, Partial and Relational Algebraic Theories, TalTech 2019-2024 Nathan Haydon, Peirce’s Existential Graphs and The Logic Of String Diagrams, TalTech 2020-2025 Matt Earnshaw, Languages of String Diagrams, TalTech 2020-2025 Diana Kessler, Computational Aspects of Rewriting in Higher-Dimensional Diagrams, TalTech, with Amar Hadzihasanovic 2025- Roberto Di Virgilio, TalTech, with Filippo Bonchi (Pisa) 2025- Guido Boccali, TalTech, with Fosco Loregian - Publications
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[93] , Parametric Iteration in Resource Theories, In 34th EACSL Annual Conference on Computer Science Logic, CSL 2026, Paris, France, February 23-28, 2026 (Stefano Guerrini, Barbara König, eds.), Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, vol. 363, pp. 29:1–29:23, 2026. [92] , Order in Partial Markov Categories, In Proceedings of the 41st Conference on Mathematical Foundations of Programming Semantics (MFPS XLI), vol. 5, 2025. [91] , String Diagrams for Premonoidal Categories, In Log. Methods Comput. Sci., vol. 21, no. 2, 2025. [90] , The calculus of neo-Peircean relations, In CoRR, vol. abs/2505.05306, 2025. [89] , Partial Markov Categories, In CoRR, vol. abs/2502.03477, 2025. [88] , Functorial semantics for relational theories, In Polynesian Journal of Mathematics, vol. 2, no. 6, pp. 1–56, 2025. [87] , Report on LiCS 2024, In ACM SIGLOG News, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 6–7, 2024. [86] , Regular planar monoidal languages, In J. Log. Algebraic Methods Program., vol. 139, pp. 100963, 2024. [85] , Diagrammatic Algebra of First Order Logic, In Proceedings of the 39th Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, LICS 2024, Tallinn, Estonia, July 8-11, 2024 (Paweł Sobociński, Ugo Dal Lago, Javier Esparza, eds.), ACM, pp. 16:1–16:15, 2024. [84] Proceedings of the 39th Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, LICS 2024, Tallinn, Estonia, July 8-11, 2024, ACM, 2024. [83] , Monoidal Width, In Log. Methods Comput. Sci., vol. 19, no. 3, 2023. [82] , String Diagrammatic Trace Theory, In 48th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science, MFCS 2023, August 28 to September 1, 2023, Bordeaux, France (Jérôme Leroux, Sylvain Lombardy, David Peleg, eds.), Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, vol. 272, pp. 43:1–43:15, 2023. [81] , Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures - 26th International Conference, FoSSaCS 2023, Held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2023, Paris, France, April 22-27, 2023, Proceedings, Springer, vol. 13992, 2023. [80] , High-level axioms for graphical linear algebra, In Sci. Comput. Program., vol. 218, pp. 102791, 2022. [79] , String diagram rewrite theory III: Confluence with and without Frobenius, In Math. Struct. Comput. Sci., vol. 32, no. 7, pp. 829–869, 2022. [78] , String diagram rewrite theory II: Rewriting with symmetric monoidal structure, In Math. Struct. Comput. Sci., vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 511–541, 2022. [77] , String Diagram Rewrite Theory I: Rewriting with Frobenius Structure, In J. ACM, vol. 69, no. 2, pp. 14:1–14:58, 2022. [76] , Monoidal Width: Capturing Rank Width, In Proceedings Fifth International Conference on Applied Category Theory, ACT 2022, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 18-22 July 2022 (Jade Master, Martha Lewis, eds.), vol. 380, pp. 268–283, 2022. [75] , Regular Monoidal Languages, In 47th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science, MFCS 2022, August 22-26, 2022, Vienna, Austria (Stefan Szeider, Robert Ganian, Alexandra Silva, eds.), Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, vol. 241, pp. 44:1–44:14, 2022. [74] , Functorial Semantics for Partial Theories, In Proc. ACM Program. Lang., vol. 5, no. POPL, pp. 57:1–57:28, 2021. [73] , Compositional modelling of network games, In 29th EACSL Annual Conference on Computer Science Logic, CSL 2021, Ljubljana, Slovenia, January 25–28, 2021 (Christel Baier, Jean Goubault-Larrecq, eds.), Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, vol. 183, pp. 30:1–30:24, 2021. [72] , A Survey of Compositional Signal Flow Theory, Chapter in Advancing Research in Information and Communication Technology - IFIP's Exciting First 60+ Years, Views from the Technical Committees and Working Groups (Michael Goedicke, Erich J. Neuhold, Kai Rannenberg, eds.), Springer, vol. 600, pp. 29–56, 2021. [71] , Bialgebraic foundations for the operational semantics of string diagrams, In Inf. Comput., vol. 281, pp. 104767, 2021. [70] , Diagrammatic Polyhedral Algebra, In 41st IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science, FSTTCS 2021, December 15-17, 2021, Virtual Conference (Mikolaj Bojanczyk, Chandra Chekuri, eds.), Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, vol. 213, pp. 40:1–40:18, 2021. [69] , A Canonical Algebra of Open Transition Systems, In Formal Aspects of Component Software - 17th International Conference, FACS 2021, Virtual Event, October 28-29, 2021, Proceedings (Gwen Salaün, Anton Wijs, eds.), Springer, vol. 13077, pp. 63–81, 2021. [68] , On Doctrines and Cartesian Bicategories, In 9th Conference on Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science, CALCO 2021, August 31 to September 3, 2021, Salzburg, Austria (Fabio Gadducci, Alexandra Silva, eds.), Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, vol. 211, pp. 10:1–10:17, 2021. [67] , Calculational Proofs in Relational Graphical Linear Algebra, In Formal Methods: Foundations and Applications – 23rd Brazilian Symposium, SBMF 2020, Ouro Preto, Brazil, November 25–27, 2020, Proceedings (Gabriela Carvalho, Volker Stolz, eds.), Springer, vol. 12475, pp. 83–100, 2020. [66] , Compositional Diagrammatic First-Order Logic, In Diagrammatic Representation and Inference – 11th International Conference, Diagrams 2020, Tallinn, Estonia, August 24–28, 2020, Proceedings, Springer, vol. 12169, pp. 402–418, 2020. [65] , Rule Algebras for Adhesive Categories, In Log. Methods Comput. Sci., vol. 16, no. 3, 2020. [64] , Contextual Equivalence for Signal Flow Graphs, In 23rd International Conference on Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures (FoSSaCS 2020), Springer, vol. 12077, pp. 77–96, 2020. [63] , CARTOGRAPHER: a tool for string diagrammatic reasoning, In 8th Conference on Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science, CALCO 2019, London, United Kingdom, June 3–6, 2019 (Markus Roggenbach, Ana Sokolova, eds.), Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, vol. 139, pp. 20:1–20:7, 2019. [62] , Bialgebraic Semantics for String Diagrams, In 30th International Conference on Concurrency Theory, CONCUR 2019, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, August 27–30, 2019 (Wan Fokkink, Rob van Glabbeek, eds.), Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, vol. 140, pp. 37:1–37:17, 2019. [61] , The Axiom of Choice in Cartesian Bicategories, In 8th Conference on Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science, CALCO 2019, London, United Kingdom, June 3–6, 2019 (Markus Roggenbach, Ana Sokolova, eds.), Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, vol. 139, pp. 15:1–15:17, 2019. [60] , Graphical Affine Algebra, In Proceedings of the 34th Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, LICS 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada, June 24–27, 2019, IEEE, pp. 1–12, 2019. [59] , Diagrammatic Algebra: From Linear to Concurrent Systems, In Proc. ACM Program. Lang., vol. 3, no. POPL, pp. 25:1–25:28, 2019. [58] , Monoidal Multiplexing, In Theoretical Aspects of Computing – ICTAC 2018 – 15th International Colloquium, Stellenbosch, South Africa, October 16–19, 2018, Proceedings (Bernd Fischer, Tarmo Uustalu, eds.), Springer, vol. 11187, pp. 116–131, 2018. [57] , Rewriting with Frobenius, In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS 2018), Oxford, UK, July 09-12, 2018, pp. 165–174, 2018. [56] , Graphical Conjunctive Queries, In 27th EACSL Annual Conference on Computer Science Logic, CSL 2018, Birmingham, UK, September 4–7, 2018 (Dan R. Ghica, Achim Jung, eds.), Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, vol. 119, pp. 13:1–13:23, 2018. [55] , Rule Algebras for Adhesive Categories, In 27th EACSL Annual Conference on Computer Science Logic, CSL 2018, Birmingham, UK, September 4–7, 2018 (Dan R. Ghica, Achim Jung, eds.), Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, vol. 119, pp. 11:1–11:21, 2018. [54] , Refinement for Signal Flow Graphs, In 28th International Conference on Concurrency Theory, CONCUR 2017, Berlin, Germany, September 5–8, 2017 (Roland Meyer, Uwe Nestmann, eds.), Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, vol. 85, pp. 24:1–24:16, 2017. [53] , Confluence of Graph Rewriting with Interfaces, In Programming Languages and Systems – 26th European Symposium on Programming, ESOP 2017, Held as Part of ETAPS 2017, Uppsala, Sweden, April 22–29, 2017, Proceedings (Hongseok Yang, ed.), Springer, vol. 10201, pp. 141–169, 2017. [52] , The Calculus of Signal Flow Diagrams I: Linear Relations on Streams, In Inf. Comput., vol. 252, pp. 2–29, 2017. [51] , Interacting Hopf Algebras, In J Pure Appl Alg, vol. 221, no. 1, pp. 144–184, 2017. [50] , A categorical approach to open and interconnected dynamical systems, In Proceedings of the 31st Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, LICS 2016, New York, NY, USA, July 5–8, 2016, ACM, pp. 495–504, 2016. [49] , Lawvere Theories as Composed PROPs, In Coalgebraic Methods in Computer Science – 13th IFIP WG 1.3 International Workshop, CMCS 2016, Co-located with ETAPS 2016, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, April 2–3, 2016, Revised Selected Papers (Ichiro Hasuo, ed.), Springer, vol. 9608, pp. 11–32, 2016. [48] , Rewriting Modulo Symmetric Monoidal Structure, In Proceedings of the 31st Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, LICS 2016, New York, NY, USA, July 5–8, 2016, ACM, pp. 710–719, 2016. [47] , Relational Presheaves, Change of Base and Weak Simulation, In J. Comput. Syst. Sci., vol. 81, no. 5, pp. 901–910, 2015. [46] , Towards Compositional Graph Theory, In Electron. Notes Theor. Comput. Sci., vol. 319, pp. 121–136, 2015. [45] , Full Abstraction for Signal Flow Graphs, In Proceedings of the 42nd Annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, POPL 2015, Mumbai, India, January 15–17, 2015, ACM, pp. 515–526, 2015. [44] , A Programming Language for Spatial Distribution of Net Systems, In Application and Theory of Petri Nets and Concurrency – 35th International Conference, PETRI NETS 2014, Tunis, Tunisia, June 23–27, 2014, Proceedings (Gianni Ciardo, Ekkart Kindler, eds.), Springer, vol. 8489, pp. 150–169, 2014. [43] , Compositional Reachability in Petri Nets, In Reachability Problems – 8th International Workshop, RP 2014, Oxford, UK, September 22–24, 2014, Proceedings (Joël Ouaknine, Igor Potapov, James Worrell, eds.), Springer, vol. 8762, pp. 230–243, 2014. [42] , Transformation and Refinement of Rigid Structures, In Graph Transformation – 7th International Conference, ICGT 2014, Held as Part of STAF 2014, York, UK, July 22–24, 2014, Proceedings (Holger Giese, Barbara König, eds.), Springer, vol. 8571, pp. 146–160, 2014. [41] , A Categorical Semantics of Signal Flow Graphs, In 25th International Conference on Concurrency Theory, CONCUR 2014, Rome, Italy, September 2–5, 2014, Proceedings (Paolo Baldan, Daniele Gorla, eds.), Springer, vol. 8704, pp. 435–450, 2014. [40] , Interacting Bialgebras Are Frobenius, In Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures – 17th International Conference, FoSSaCS 2014, Held as Part of ETAPS 2014, Grenoble, France, April 5–13, 2014, Proceedings (Anca Muscholl, ed.), Springer, vol. 8412, pp. 351–365, 2014. [39] , Processes and Unfoldings: Concurrent Computations in Adhesive Categories, In Math. Struct. Comput. Sci., vol. 24, no. 4, 2014. [38] , Decomposing Petri nets, 2013. [37] , Nets, Relations and Linking Diagrams, In Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science – 5th International Conference, CALCO 2013, Warsaw, Poland, September 3–6, 2013, Proceedings, Springer, vol. 8089, pp. 282–298, 2013. [36] , Reachability via compositionality in Petri nets, 2013. [35] , Connector Algebras for C/E and P/T NetsÍnteractions, In Log. Methods Comput. Sci., vol. 9, no. 3, 2013. [34] , Relational presheaves as labelled transition systems, In Coalgebraic Methods in Computer Science (CMCS `12), Springer, vol. 7399, pp. 40-50, 2012. [33] , WiCcA: LTS generation tool for wire calculus, In Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science (CALCO Tools `11), Springer, vol. 6859, pp. 407–412, 2011. [32] , Being Van Kampen is a universal property, In Log. Methods Comput. Sci., vol. 7, no. 1, 2011. [31] , Adhesivitiy is not enough: Local Church-Rosser revisited, In Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS `11), Springer, vol. 6907, pp. 48–59, 2011. [30] , Representations of Petri net interactions, In Concurrency Theory (CONCUR `10), Springer, no. 6269, pp. 554–568, 2010. [29] , Deriving structural labelled transitions for mobile ambients, In Information and Computation, vol. 208, pp. 1221-1242, 2010. [28] , A non-interleaving process calculus for multi-party synchronisation, In Proceedings 2nd Interaction and Concurrency Experience: Structured Interactions, ICE 2009, Bologna, Italy, 31st August 2009 (Filippo Bonchi, Davide Grohmann, Paola Spoletini, Emilio Tuosto, eds.), vol. 12, pp. 87–98, 2009. [27] , Making the unobservable, unobservable, In Proceedings of ICE '08, vol. 229, no. 3, pp. 131–144, 2009. [26] , Van Kampen colimits as bicolimits in Span, In Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science (Calco '09), Springer, no. 5728, pp. 335–349, 2009. [25] , Foreword: Festschrift for Mogens Nielsen's 60th birthday, In Theor. Comput. Sci., vol. 410, no. 41, pp. 4001–4005, 2009. [24] , Unfolding grammars in adhesive categories, In Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science (Calco '09), Springer, no. 5728, pp. 350–366, 2009. [23] , Subobject transformation systems, In Applied Categorical Structures, Kluwer, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 389–419, 2008. [22] , Deconstructing behavioural theories of mobility, In Fifth IFIP International Conference On Theoretical Computer Science - TCS '08, Springer, 2008. [21] , Deriving structural labelled transitions for mobile ambients, In Concurrency Theory (CONCUR `08), Springer, vol. 5201, pp. 462–476, 2008. [20] , Quasitoposes, quasiadhesive categories and Artin glueing, In Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science, Calco '07, Springer, vol. 4626, 2007. [19] , Semantic barbs and biorthogonality, In Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures, FoSSaCS '07, Springer, vol. 4423, pp. 302–316, 2007. [18] , Toposes are adhesive, In International conference on graph transformation, ICGT '06, Springer, vol. 4178, pp. 184–198, 2006. [17] , Reversing graph transformations, In Workshop on Petri nets and graph transformations, PNGT '06, vol. 2 (2006), 2006. [16] , General reversibility, In International Workshop on Expressiveness in Concurrency, Express '06, Elsevier, 2006. [15] , Processes for Adhesive Rewriting Systems, In Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures, FoSSaCS '06, Springer, vol. 3921, pp. 202–216, 2006. [14] , Locating reaction with 2-categories, In Theoretical Computer Science, vol. 333, no. 1-2, pp. 297–327, 2005. [13] , A congruence for Petri nets, In Workshop on Petri nets and graph transformation, PNGT '04, Elsevier, vol. 127, pp. 107–120, 2005. [12] , Reactive Systems over Cospans, In Logic in Computer Science, LiCS '05, IEEE Press, pp. 311–320, 2005. [11] , Deriving weak bisimulation congruences from reduction systems, In International Conference on Concurrency Theory, Concur '05, Springer, vol. 3653, pp. 293–307, 2005. [10] , Labels from reductions: towards a general theory, In Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science, Calco '05, Springer, vol. 3629, pp. 30–50, 2005. [9] , Adhesive and quasiadhesive categories, In RAIRO - Theoretical Informatics and Applications, EDP Sciences, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 522–546, 2005. [8] , Deriving process congruences from reaction rules, PhD thesis, BRICS, University of Aarhus, 2004. [7] , Process congruences from reaction rules (Luca Aceto's Concurrency Column), In Bulletin of the EATCS, vol. 84, 2004. [6] , Adhesivity, bigraphs and bisimulation congruence, In Dagstuhl Seminar 04241, Graph Transformations and Process Algebras for Modeling Distributed and Mobile Systems, 2004. [5] , Adhesive categories, In Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures, FoSSaCS '04, Springer, vol. 2987, pp. 273–288, 2004. [4] , Deriving Bisimulation Congruences Using 2-categories, In Nordic Journal of Computing, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 163–183, 2003. [3] , Deriving bisimulation congruences: 2-categories vs precategories, In Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures, FoSSaCS '03, Springer, vol. 2620, 2003. [2] , Syntactic Formats for Free: An Abstract Approach to Process Equivalence, In International Conference on Concurrency Theory, Concur '03, Springer, vol. 2620, pp. 72–86, 2003. [1] , Deriving Bisimulation Congruences: A 2-categorical Approach, In International Workshop on Expressiveness in Concurrency, Express '02, Elsevier, vol. 68, no. 2, 2002.