Sophia Knight

Department of Computer Science
University of Minnesota Duluth
Duluth, Minnesota, USA

My CV.

Email: sophia.knight at gmail.com

I am an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth in the Department of Computer Science. I do research on the relationship between knowledge, communication, information flow, and interaction in dynamic multi-agent systems, using tools from concurrency theory and epistemic logic. I am interested in applying these ideas to problems in social networks and other multi-user online systems with personal data, as well as to security problems. I have studied these problems from several perspectives: various modal logics with an epistemic focus, process algebra, games, and topological models. I am currently working on a logic for analyzing the effects of asynchronous communication on knowledge as well as an epistemic version of strategy logic for modelling agents' abilities and knowledge under uncertainty. I am also developing a constraint programming language with modal information, in order to reason about knowledge and information flow among agents in a distributed system. Finally, with Aybüke Özgün I have worked on topological semantics for dynamic epistemic logics.

From 2016 to 2018, I was a postdoctoral researcher at Uppsala University in the Concurrency group. From 2013 to 2016, I was a postdoctoral researcher at LORIA at Université de Lorraine, in Hans van Ditmarsch's CELLO team.

I received my PhD in 2013 from LIX at Ecole Polytechnique. My supervisors were Frank Valencia and Catuscia Palamidessi. I was in the COMETE team. My dissertation analysed the flow of information between interacting agents, using game semantics, modal logic, and process calculus.

I received my Master's degree from McGill University's School of Computer Science in 2009. My supervisor was Prakash Panangaden. I was in the Reasoning and Learning Laboratory. My thesis was about a game semantics for a process algebra modelling information flow between agents in anonymity protocols.


Journal Papers
  • S. Knight, B. Maubert and F. Schwarzentruber. Reasoning about Knowledge and Messages in Asynchronous Multi-agent Systems. Accepted for publication, Mathematical Structures in Computer Science, 2017. Special Issue for ICTAC 2015. [pdf]

  • H. van Ditmarsch, S. Knight and A. Özgün. Private Announcements on Topological Spaces. Accepted for publication, Studia Logica, 2017. [pdf]

  • H. van Ditmarsch, S. Knight and A. Özgün. Announcement as Effort on Topological Spaces. Accepted for publication, Synthese, 2017. [pdf]

  • K. Chatzikokolakis, S. Knight, C. Palamidessi and P. Panangaden. Epistemic Strategies and Games on Concurrent Processes. ACM Transactions on Computational Logic, 13(4): 28:1-28:35, 2012. [pdf]

Conference and Workshop Papers
  • S. Knight, B. Maubert and F. Schwarzentruber. Asynchronous Annoucements in a Public Channel. ICTAC 2015, Springer, LNCS 9399, pp. 272-289, 2015. [pdf]

  • S. Knight and B. Maubert. Dealing with Imperfect Information in Strategy Logic. SR 2015. [pdf]

    H. van Ditmarsch, S. Knight and A. Özgün. Announcement as Effort on Topological Spaces. TARK 2015, EPTCS 215, pp. 283-297, 2015. [pdf]

  • H. van Ditmarsch, S. Knight and A. Özgün. Arbitrary Announcements on Topological Subset Spaces. Proceedings of EUMAS 2014, Springer, LNCS, 8953, pp. 252-266, 2014. [pdf]

  • H. van Ditmarsch and S. Knight. Partial Information and Uniform Strategies. Proceedings of CLIMA '14, Springer, LNCS 8624, pp. 183-198, 2014. [pdf]

  • H. van Ditmarsch, S. Knight and A. Özgün. Arbitrary Announcements on Topological Subset Spaces. ICLA 2014. [pdf]

  • N. Ferns, D. Precup and S. Knight. Bisimulation for Markov Decision Processes through Families of Functional Expressions. Horizons of the Mind. A Tribute to Prakash Panangaden, Springer, LNCS 8464, pp. 319-342, 2014. [pdf]

  • S. Knight, C. Palamidessi, P. Panangaden and F. Valencia. Spatial and Epistemic Modalities in Constraint-Based Process Calculi. Proceedings of CONCUR '12, Springer, LNCS 7454, pp. 317-332, 2012. [pdf]

  • S. Knight, R. Mardare and P. Panangaden. Combining Epistemic Logic and Hennessy-Milner Logic, in Dexter Kozen's Festschrift published as Logic and Program Semantics, Springer, LNCS 7230, eds. Robert Constable and Alexandra Silva, pp. 219-243, 2012. [pdf]

  • A. Barco, S. Knight and F. Valencia. K-Stores: A Spatial and Epistemic Concurrent Constraint Interpreter. Proceedings of WFLP '12, 2012. [pdf]

  • K. Chatzikokolakis, S. Knight and P. Panangaden. Epistemic Strategies and Games on Concurrent Processes. Proceedings of SOFSEM '09, Springer, LNCS 5404, pp. 153-166, 2009. [pdf]

Presentations
    • S. Knight and B. Maubert. Epistemic Strategy Logic. Workshop on Formal Methods in AI, 2017. [slides]

    • S. Knight. A Strategic Epistemic Logic for Bounded Memory Agents. Workshop on Logics for Resource-Bounded Agents, ESSLLI 2015. [pdf] [slides]

    • S. Knight. Games on Concurrent Processes: Epistemic Strategies. SecCo '08, 2008. [slides]

    Thesis
    • The Epistemic View of Concurrency Theory. Defended 20 September, 2013. [pdf]