This is the first time that the ACM Software System Award has been awarded to an Australian-based team. The seL4 project represents two decades of sustained world-leading research. Since its original publication in 2009, the seL4 kernel has set the bar for how secure systems should be engineered, while demolishing long-held beliefs about the limits of what formal methods can achieve, demonstrating that system security need not come at the cost of performance. Today, seL4’s development is overseen by the seL4 Foundation. The kernel is deployed in several commercial products and serves as the basis for a large body of ongoing research.
The winning team is led out of the University of New South Wales Trustworthy Systems Group by ACM Fellow and Scientia Professor Gernot Heiser, and also includes Associate Professor Michael Norrish from the ANU. Other members of the winning team are: Gerwin Klein, Proofcraft; Harvey Tuch, Google; Kevin Elphinstone, University of New South Wales; June Andronick, Proofcraft; David Cock, ETH Zurich; Philip Derrin, Qualcomm; Dhammika Elkaduwe, University of Peradeniya; Kai Engelhardt; Toby Murray, University of Melbourne; Rafal Kolanski, Proofcraft; Thomas Sewell, University of Cambridge; and Simon Winwood, Galois.