Ben Wooding
I am currently a Postdoctoral Scholar (Research) at Vanderbilt University at the Institute for Software Integrated Systems working in the group of Taylor T. Johnson. I am investigating safe artificial intelligence (AI), verifiable machine learning (ML), and applications to cyber-physical systems.
I was an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellow (2023-2025) in the School of Computing at Newcastle University. I researched a project titled “Reliable AI-Enabled Design of Cyber-Physical Systems”.
My PhD thesis (2023) was “Model-Based and Data-Driven Formal Synthesis of Power Systems” supervised by Sadegh Soudjani, funded by an EPSRC Studentship. My research focused on the intersection of formal methods in computer science and control theory, applied to power system primary frequency regulation.
I have contributed to the international academic community with published works, conference presentations, program committee memberships, and paper reviews. Published works of particular note are conference works at Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (HSCC), European Control Conference (ECC), Analysis and Design of Hybrid Systems (ADHS), Quantitative Evaluation of Systems and Formal Modeling and Analysis of Timed Systems (QEST+FORMATS), International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS), and recent journal works in Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems (NAHS) and Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology. I contributed two chapters to the book Active Building Energy Systems: Operation and Control.
At Newcastle University, I was the chair of AMBER (involved coordinating regular seminars), gave multiple internal research presentations, and assisted widely by teaching as a demonstrator and with marking. I have experience with supervising PhD, MSc and BSc student projects. Alongside these, I have previously led the team for research communication and dissemination for the HyCoDeV Lab.
I completed an integrated Masters degree in Computer Science (Security and Resilience) with 1st Class Honours (2019) also at Newcastle University. For the project and dissertation, I received 92%.
I am currently a Postdoctoral Scholar (Research) at Vanderbilt University at the Institute for Software Integrated Systems working in the group of Taylor T. Johnson. I am investigating safe artificial intelligence (AI), verifiable machine learning (ML), and applications to cyber-physical systems.
I was an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellow (2023-2025) in the School of Computing at Newcastle University. I researched a project titled “Reliable AI-Enabled Design of Cyber-Physical Systems”.
I have contributed to the international academic community with published works, conference presentations, program committee memberships, and paper reviews. In 2026, I am a member of the HSCC/ICCPS Poster/Demo Program Committee, and I contributed to the organization of a AAAI Tutorial. Published works of particular note are conference works at Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (HSCC), European Control Conference (ECC), Analysis and Design of Hybrid Systems (ADHS), Quantitative Evaluation of Systems and Formal Modeling and Analysis of Timed Systems (QEST+FORMATS), International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS), and recent journal works in Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems (NAHS) and Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology. I contributed two chapters to the book Active Building Energy Systems: Operation and Control.
My PhD thesis (2023) was “Model-Based and Data-Driven Formal Synthesis of Power Systems” supervised by Sadegh Soudjani, funded by an EPSRC Studentship. My research focused on the intersection of formal methods in computer science and control theory, applied to power system primary frequency regulation.
At Vanderbilt University, I have given a lecture for the Advanced Graduate Course: Automated Verification (CS6315). I am attending the Academy of College Teaching (ACT) workshop series to prepare for college level teaching.
At Newcastle University, I was the chair of AMBER (involved coordinating regular seminars), gave multiple internal research presentations, and assisted widely by teaching as a demonstrator and with marking. I have experience with supervising PhD, MSc and BSc student projects. Alongside these, I previously led the team for research communication and dissemination for the HyCoDeV Lab.
I completed an integrated Masters degree in Computer Science (Security and Resilience) with 1st Class Honours (2019) also at Newcastle University. For the project and dissertation, I received 92%.
In-Person Invited Talks
- Max Planck Institute, Germany – Institute for Software Systems (SWS) – August 2025
- UC Louvain, Belgium – Cyber-Physical Systems lab – June 2025
- Newcastle University, UK – Open Research Conference – June 2025
- Vanderbilt University, USA – Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) – May 2025
- TU Eindhoven, The Netherlands – Control Systems Technology Group (CST) – Feb 2025
- Lancaster University, UK – School of Computing and Communications – Dec 2024
- Kings College London, UK – Software Systems Group (SSY) – Nov 2024
- Edinburgh University, UK – Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour (IPAB) – Nov 2024
- Durham University, UK – Scientific Computing Group (SciComp) – Nov 2024
- Newcastle University, UK – PARTNERS24 ‘Ask the Experts’ event – July 2024
Workshop and Tutorial Organization
Google Scholar Scrape
A collection of my recent publications have been scraped from Google Scholar below:
| Title | Cited by | Year |
|---|---|---|
|
ARCH-COMP25 Category Report: Stochastic Models
A Abate, O Akbarzadeh, HAP Blom, S Haesaert, S Hassani, A Lavaei, … 12th International Workshop on Applied Verification for Continuous and …, 2025 |
31 | 2025 |
|
PRoTECT: Parallelized ConstRuction of SafeTy BarriEr Certificates for Nonlinear Polynomial SysTems
B Wooding, V Horbanov, A Lavaei International Colloquium on Theoretical Aspects of Computing, 448-458, 2025 |
17 | 2025 |
|
Proving the Correctness of CANDO3 Optrode Command Interface VDM model in Isabelle/HOL
L Freitas, B Wooding, B Scott, A Pollitt, P Degenaar Proceedings of the 23rd International Overture Workshop, 2025 |
2025 | |
|
PRoTECT: Parallel construction of barrier certificates for safety verification of polynomial systems
B Wooding, V Horbanov, A Lavaei Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 16th International Conference on Cyber-Physical …, 2025 |
2 | 2025 |
|
TRUST: StabiliTy and Safety ContRoller Synthesis for Unknown Dynamical Models Using a Single Trajectory
J Gardner, B Wooding, A Nejati, A Lavaei Proceedings of the 28th ACM International Conference on Hybrid Systems …, 2025 |
4 | 2025 |
|
A logic-based resilience metric for water resource recovery facilities
AS Laino, B Wooding, S Soudjani, RJ Davenport Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology 11 (2), 377-392, 2025 |
6 | 2025 |
|
Learning k-inductive control barrier certificates for unknown nonlinear dynamics beyond polynomials
B Wooding, A Lavaei arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.07232, 2024 |
4 | 2024 |
|
IMPaCT: Interval MDP Parallel Construction for Controller Synthesis of Large-Scale STochastic Systems
B Wooding, A Lavaei International Conference on Quantitative Evaluation of Systems and Formal …, 2024 |
9 | 2024 |
|
IMPaCT: A parallelized software tool for IMDP construction and controller synthesis with convergence guarantees
B Wooding, A Lavaei Proceedings of the 27th ACM International Conference on Hybrid Systems …, 2024 |
3 | 2024 |
|
Data-driven abstraction-based control synthesis
M Kazemi, R Majumdar, M Salamati, S Soudjani, B Wooding Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems 52, 101467, 2024 |
47 | 2024 |
|
Data-driven abstractions via binary-tree Gaussian processes for formal verification
O Schön, S Naseer, B Wooding, S Soudjani IFAC-PapersOnLine 58 (11), 115-122, 2024 |
5 | 2024 |
|
Formal control of new England 39-bus test system: an assume-guarantee approach
B Wooding, A Lavaei, S Soudjani arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.03467, 2023 |
6 | 2023 |
|
Robust simulation functions with disturbance refinement
B Wooding, A Lavaei, V Vahidinasab, S Soudjani 2023 European Control Conference (ECC), 1-6, 2023 |
8 | 2023 |
|
Model-based and data-driven formal synthesis of power systems
BJ Wooding Newcastle University, 2023 |
2023 | |
|
Cyber-Physical Smart Homes/Buildings
B Wooding, V Vahidinasab, S Soudjani Springer, 2021 |
2021 | |
|
Control and management of active buildings
B Wooding, V Vahidinasab, M Kazemi, S Soudjani Active Building Energy Systems: Operation and Control, 161-192, 2021 |
2 | 2021 |
|
Operation and control of a population of active buildings at network level
B Wooding, V Vahidinasab, S Soudjani Active Building Energy Systems: Operation and Control, 193-218, 2021 |
3 | 2021 |
|
Tuning Robotti: the machine-assisted exploration of parameter spaces in multi-models of a cyber-physical system
S Bogomolov, J Fitzgerald, FF Foldager, C Gamble, PG Larsen, K Pierce, … Proceedings of the 18th International Overture Workshop, 50-64, 2021 |
6 | 2021 |
|
Formal controller synthesis for frequency regulation utilising electric vehicles
B Wooding, V Vahidinasab, S Soudjani 2020 International Conference on Smart Energy Systems and Technologies (SEST …, 2020 |
13 | 2020 |
|
ARCH-COMP20 Category Report: Stochastic Models
A Alessandro, B Henk, C Nathalie, D Joanna, H Arnd, K Mahmoud, … 7th International Workshop on Applied Verification of Continuous and Hybrid …, 2020 |
7* | 2020 |
Reviewing Activities
Conferences: IFAC American Control Conference (ACC), IFAC Conference on Analysis and Design of Hybrid Systems (ADHS), International Symposium on Automated Technology for Verification and Analysis (ATVA), Computation-Aware Algorithmic Design for Cyber-Physical Systems (CAADCPS), International Conference on Computer Aided Verification (CAV), IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications (CCTA), IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), IEEE European Control Conference (ECC), ACM Hybrid Systems Control Conference (HSCC), ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS), International Symposium On Leveraging Applications of Formal Methods Verification and Validation (ISoLA), IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), Intelligent Vehicle Symposium (IV), Learning for Decision and Control (L4DC), International Conference on Quantitative Evaluation of SysTems and International Conference on Formal Modeling and Analysis of Timed Systems (QEST+FORMATS), IFAC World Congress (WC)
Journals: IEEE Access, IFAC Automatica, Elsevier European Journal of Control (EJCON), Royal Society of Chemistry Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (TAC), IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology (TCST), Elsevier Performance Evaluation (PEVA), Royal Society Philosophical Transactions A, Cambridge University Press Research Directions: Cyber-Physical Systems
Book Chapters: Active Building Energy Systems: Operation and Control