Sarah got her passion for programming from her father. Her husband describe her as a kind, fair, supportive, curious and funny woman, and also very adventurous. She was surprised by the last one, as she is easily intimidated and can find adventure a difficult step to take.
Meeting with the one who just joined IRIF as associate professor at Irif, Université Paris Cité.

« Recently there has been a trend to use AI for everything, and I have also become very interested in this topic. My goal is to combine traditional synthesis methods with AI methods, to get the best of both worlds. Meaning to come up with synthesis methods that have formal guarantees but also have the ease and convenience of AI methods. » Sarah Winter, associate professor at IRIF | Automata, structures and verification Pole - Automata and applications Team.

I'm from Germany and I studied there. I always had good grades, so it was clear to me that I would continue my studies. I quickly settled on computer science because my father was a hobby programmer. As a child I was fascinated by it, even before I had my first computer. I loved watching my dad write code. He created a simple program which felt incredible to me and seeing that made me want to do something like that later. So I easily settled on computer science. I decided to do a PhD after I finished my studies. I had always been curious about doing a PhD, but I didn't feel confident enough. I was always amazed at how people could prove things. I didn't think I would be able to do it, I thought it would be too difficult for me, but over time I realised that I could understand what other people were writing in their articles, and I became more and more comfortable, and finally I really started to feel capable of doing it myself, so over time I developed the will and the courage to do it.

The overall theme is synthesis. Usually – when you are a programmer – you think about how to do something and implement it. The idea of synthesis is to make this easier: You design a specification of what a program should do, and then you try to automatically generate a program from that. So the developers only have to think about what to do, not how to do it. I always found that very nice, the idea that you can just describe something and then it automatically generates something that does what you want it to do.

Recently, there has been a trend to use AI for everything, and I have also become interested in this topic. My goal is to combine traditional synthesis methods with AI methods, to get the best of both worlds. Meaning to come up with synthesis methods that have formal guarantees but also have the ease and convenience of AI methods.

I am focusing on reactive synthesis. Reactive programmes mainly occur in safety-critical systems, such as hardware controllers and transport systems. I'd like to make reactive synthesis more practical. Current synthesis methods are scientifically mature, but can't really deal with the challenges we have right now. It's rather theoretical at the moment, and I'd like to improve it so that it could be used by the industry at some point. I want to develop reactive synthesis methods to generate more realistic programs, for example, that can deal with data. I also want to make it simpler for everyone, so not only experts with a lot of knowledge can use it. My goal is to find a middle way between having something that is formally sound and something that is actually usable.

It will take years but eventually I would like to write an HDR and be a professor somewhere. I actually just arrived in September at IRIF, I finished my PhD in Germany in 2018 and then started a post-doc in Brussels.

During the Corona pandemic I started a new hobby, 360° photography. It's so fun and accessible, I just grab my small camera when I travel and take some photos and I am always curious how it will turn out. You can't really imagine the result until you see it. It's very interesting to see the different angles and projections. I really love it. Before, I was just taking pictures with my phone, there was no ambition or regularity, but with 360° photography, I have that now. I created an Instagram account. I have a special camera with two lenses, one on each side, mounted on a selfie stick. I saw this process on Instagram and I wanted to try it, I felt it's something for me. Corona was the moment I started doing it.

I would also like to recommend a book that I think is really interesting for everyone to read, academics and in general: A portrait of the scientist as a young woman: a memoire by Lindy Elkins Tanton. I think it's an interesting story about how you can fall in love with science, and it's also about the challenges you face specifically as a woman. It's a great story for developing resilience and being more comfortable with your life. A colleague in Brussels bought it and thought I might be interested, so he gave it to me.

2023: Arrived at IRIF as an associate professor (Maîtresse de Conférences)
2019: Post-doc in Brussels at ULB with Emmanuel Filiot
2018: Finished PhD in RWTH Aachen University, Germany with Christof Löding