Dr. Ashlin Iser

Efficient Symbolic Reasoning and Trustworthy AI – Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)

Over 20 years of hands-on software engineering experience – from bare-metal performance optimization to full-stack system design – combined with academic expertise in algorithm engineering and automated reasoning.

🔬 Research Interests

I specialize in Efficient Symbolic Reasoning (SAT/SMT, planning, optimization, data-driven algorithm development and tuning) and Trustworthy, Explainable AI. My work focuses on efficient symbolic solvers for complex combinatorial problems and their applications, most recently in neuro-symbolic AI.

📈 Engagement

• Professional Activities: Organizer of the International SAT Competitions (since 2015); active program committee member (e.g., SAT, ECAI) and reviewer for leading journals (e.g., AIJ, TCS, NCOMMS).
• Teaching & Mentorship: Focused on graduate-level courses (including “Practical SAT Solving” with an LQI of 100, and the “Recent Advances in SAT Solving” seminar) along with mentoring research and software engineering projects. Experienced in organizing large-scale undergraduate lab courses (Algorithms, Programming) with up to 700 participants.
• Supervision: Over 30 completed theses (Bachelor, Master, Diploma), split between academic, research-focused topics at the institute and industry-partnered collaborations (CAS Software AG, PLANTA Projekt-Management Systeme GmbH).
• Publications: 24 peer-reviewed papers (journals, conferences & workshops).
• Open Source: Author and maintainer of the Global Benchmark Database (GBD).

🛠 Technical Expertise

• Algorithm & Performance Engineering: Bare-metal and low-level optimization, high-performance solver engineering for large-scale combinatorial problems, and parallel algorithm design.
• Full-Stack & Architecture: End-to-end system design spanning algorithmic backends, web frontends, and relational data modeling.
• Technologies: High Performance Computing (HPC), Constraint & Logic Solving, Database Systems and Modeling, Machine Learning, Software Testing, Static Code Analysis.
• Languages & Tools: C++, Python, SQL, C, Java, diverse Scripting Languages and Web Technologies, and extensive experience with Linux environments.

📚 Selected Publications

• Sustainable Benchmarking Tool (2026, SAT)

  DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SAT.2026.36

• Active Learning for SAT Solver Benchmarking (2025, JAR)

  DOI: 10.1007/s10817-025-09729-6

• Global Benchmark Database (SAT 2024)

  DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SAT.2024.18

• Oracle-Based Local Search for Pseudo-Boolean Optimization (ECAI 2023)

  DOI: 10.3233/FAIA230387

• A Comprehensive Study of k-Portfolios of Recent SAT Solvers (SAT 2022)

  DOI: 10.4230/LIPICS.SAT.2022.2

• Unit Propagation with Stable Watches (CP 2021)

  DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CP.2021.6

• SAT Competition 2020 (AIJ 2021)

  DOI: 10.1016/J.ARTINT.2021.103572