Alexander Sjösten specialises in security
Alexander Sjösten recently received a doctorate from the Department of Computer 91̽»¨ and Engineering. He was part of a research group for language-based security. Alexander's path to life as a PhD has been through the Computer 91̽»¨ bachelor, followed by the master's programme in the same field - both at the University 91̽»¨.
What did you work with as a PhD?
– I have worked with trying to start a system for browsers to be able to follow the information flow in a web application. The system has a strong focus on security where we tag data as sensitive or non-sensitive information. The basic idea is that sensitive input data should never affect non-sensitive output data – there should never be a risk of sensitive data leaking out of the system in any way.
What was the most exciting thing about your PhD position?
– To have the opportunity to be at the front edge. It is not very likely that I would've had the opportunity to work with this if I was out in the industry. The reason why we are researching in this area is to achieve something very specific, where no one has found a solution yet.
How did you get into the field of computer science?
– I have a technical background with a lot of math and programming, so this felt like a natural path for me. I saw that the Computer 91̽»¨ programme at the University 91̽»¨ was one of the programmes that had the most elective courses. This means that you can choose a niche yourself. I was attracted by that opportunity.
What was the best thing about the education?
– The great freedom of choice, the opportunity to influence the focus of my education and the high quality of the courses. A national evaluation of educations in the computer science field was made when I went to the Computer 91̽»¨ programme and our programme was rated "very high quality".
Was there anything less good about the education?
– The education was very good when I took it. But I can honestly say that the course coordinators had quite little control over what applied to the students from the University 91̽»¨, since the majority of the students on the same courses were from Chalmers. But already when I read my master's a few years later, it became much better and more obvious that there were two student categories: "for you who study at the University 91̽»¨, this applies and for you who are students at Chalmers, this applies".
Why did you chose to study you master's at University 91̽»¨?
– For two reasons. Partly because the master's degree in Computer 91̽»¨ at the University 91̽»¨ also means a great deal of freedom of choice to combine my own courses – I had my focus on security and the similar focus could not really be obtained at Chalmers in an easy way. The other reason was because I already had my bachelor degree from the University 91̽»¨, which means I basically got a place guarantee on the master's programme.
In the autumn of 2020, Alexander will begin his postdoc at the Technical University of Vienna.
Text: Catharina Jerkbrant
