About Me

I am Qian Cheng (程潜), a second-year PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at Nanjing University. My research focuses on formal methods on real-world systems, where I work on developing techniques to ensure the correctness and reliability of complex software systems.

Research Interests

My primary research area is formal methods for real-world systems, especially model checking and specification-driven assurance. I am also exploring how generative AI can help create and refine formal specifications for complex computer systems. I am particularly interested in:

• AI-assisted authoring and maintenance of formal specifications
• Generative AI techniques that bridge software engineering and formal methods

Education

• PhD in Computer Science, Nanjing University, 2024 - Present
  • Advisor: Yu Huang
  • Research focus: Formal methods on real-world systems
• Bachelor in Computer Science, Nanjing University, 2020 - 2024
  • Department of Computer Science

News

• 2026-01: Our paper “SysMoBench” is accepted to ICLR 2026!
• 2025-11-12: Presented Specula at the TLA+ Community meeting (talk recording).
• 2025-08: Winners of the TLAi+ Challenge.

Projects

• SysMoBench: Benchmark suite and artifacts for system modeling and runtime verification.
• Specula: Specification-focused tooling for monitoring real-world systems.

Publications

• Qian Cheng, Ruize Tang, Emilie Ma, Finn Hackett, Peiyang He, Yiming Su, Ivan Beschastnikh, Yu Huang, Xiaoxing Ma, Tianyin Xu. “SysMoBench: Evaluating AI on Formally Modeling Complex Real-World Systems.” ICLR 2026. [arXiv]
• Tang Ruize, Huang Yu, Ouyang Lingzhi, Cheng Qian, Zhang Yuqi, Ma Xiaoxing. “Research Progress on Distributed System Model Checking.” Journal of Software. (In Chinese)

Contact

Feel free to reach out to me via email at cq@smail.nju.edu.cn