Matthias FÜGGER

Full-time Researcher, CNRS

Research

My main research interest is the study of the fundamentals of computationally extremely restricted distributed devices (engineered or models of existing physical or biological systems). Restrictions are typically with respect to memory, communication, complexity of state transitions, etc. I work on:

• Theory of distributed algorithms
• Synthetic biology
• Circuits
• Robustness and fault-tolerance
• Computing in dynamic networks
• Algorithms implemented in silicon and at cell-level

Projects

• PROCEED [2023, running]. Concept grant (AAP Preuve de Concept de l’OI BioProbe)

  Collaboration between LUMIN (ENS Paris-Saclay) and LMF (ENS Paris-Saclay).

• DREAMY [2021-2025, running]. Distributed Algorithms for Microbiological Systems (ANR-funded research project)

  Please check the DREAMY webpage for details.

• HicDiesMeus [2017-2022]. Working group on Highly Constrained Discrete Agents for Modeling Natural Systems (funded by DigiCosme).
• BACON [2021]. Bacterial Consensus. (funded by INS2I CNRS Émergence)
• ETSHI [2020-2021]. Efficient Test Strategies for SARS-CoV-2 in Healthcare Institutions. (funded by Université Paris-Saclay/ENS Paris-Saclay/CARE)

  The project is a collaboration between LISN (Université Paris-Saclay), LMF (Université Paris-Saclay/ENS Paris-Saclay), Micalis (INRAe), and the Algorithms and Complexity Group (Max Planck Institut für Informatik).

• ABIDE [2020] . Algorithms in Birth-Death Systems (funded by INS2I CNRS Émergence)
• COMBACT [2019-2020]. Digital Communication Models for Bacteria (funded by RFSI Ile de France grant)

  Funding for a PostDoc and M2 position to study bacterial communication in E. coli.

• DEPEC MODE [2019]. Deriving Phage Communication Models. Projets Emergents 2019 du Departement STIC.
  Funding for experiments for a phage communication model for E. coli and M13 phages.
• DICIMUS [2018-2019]. Institut Farman project on modeling of bacterial interactions using techniques from distributed computing theory and VLSI design.
  Focus of the project is to obtain experimental data to verify and calibrate theoretical models.
• SIC [2013-2018]. Austrian FWF project on Self-stabilizing Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Distributed Algorithms for Integrated Circuits.
  Aim of the project was to study distributed algorithms that can be efficiently implemented directly in hardware, in order to provide robust services to other hardware components or the application layer. Examples are robust clock synchronization, clock frequency adaptation in presence of voltage droops, communication infrastructure on a chip, etc. Please see the SIC webpage for details.

Teaching, Thesis, and Internships

Thesis and Internships: If you are interested in writing a Bachelor/Master/PhD thesis or making an internship in one of the above research topics write me a short mail including your current status and topic of interest.

Internship projects for TU Wien Bachelor with Honors students: please see here for further information.

Teaching in previous years:

• Winter 2022: Initiation a la recherche (Distributed synthetic microbiology, 2h) at ENS Paris-Saclay. In collaboration with Thomas Nowak.
• Winter 2021: Initiation a la recherche (Distributed synthetic microbiology, 2h) at ENS Paris-Saclay.
• Winter 2021: Natural algorithms. In collaboration with Thomas Nowak.
  Please see the course website for details.
• Winter 2021: Metastability-containing Synchronization Circuits. In collaboration with Cristoph Lenzen, Danny Dolev, Moti Medina, Ian W. Jones, and Johannes Bund. At CISPA, Germany.
  
• Summer 2021: Clock Synchronization and Adversarial Fault Tolerance (MSc level, remote lecture, 4h) at MPI-INF together with Christoph Lenzen and Danny Dolev.
• Winter 2020: Initiation a la recherche (Distributed synthetic microbiology, 2h) at ENS Paris-Saclay.
• Winter 2020: How To Clock Your Computer (MSc level, remote lecture, 4h) at MPI-INF together with Christoph Lenzen, Moti Medina, Andreas Steininger, Danny Dolev, Ian Jones, and Milos Krstic.
• Winter 2019: Initiation a la recherche (Distributed synthetic microbiology, 2h) at ENS Paris-Saclay.
• Winter 2019: Guest lecture at MPI-INF on Distributed Computing with Bacteria.
• Winter 2018: Initiation a la recherche (Distributed Biology, 2h) at ENS Paris-Saclay.
• Winter 2018: Guest lecture at MPI-INF on Link Reversal Algorithms.
• Winter 2017: Initiation a la recherche (Opinion Dynamics, 2h) at ENS Paris-Saclay.
• Summer 2015: Beyond Classical Circuit Design at MPI-INF.

Positions

• since 01/2024: Co-PI of the Cellular Computing Group.
• since 01/2022: Head of the Distributed Computing Group at LMF.
• since 10/2016: CNRS Researcher at LMF, ENS Paris-Saclay.
• 2016-2024: Member of the Inria Team MEXICO.
• 2015-09/2016: Postdoc at Department 1: Algorithms and Complexity, Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik, with Christoph Lenzen.
• 2014: Postdoc at LIX, Ecole polytechnique, with Bernadette Charron-Bost.
• 2006-2014: Research Assistant and then Assistant Professor at the ECS Group, Department of Computer Engineering, TU Wien, with Ulrich Schmid.

Thesis

Habilitation thesis at Université Paris-Saclay. Computing at the border of abstractions: the power of timed, non-binary, distributed circuits. Jan 6, 2022.

Publications

(list generated by bibtex2html)

Personal links

Page of my sister Johanna Függer-Vagts who works at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on art history.