+---
+title: "A New Beginning"
+categories: research rust
+---
+
+I have some very exciting news to share: starting November 1st, I will work at ETH Zürich as an assistant professor!
+Becoming a professor in the first place is a dream come true, and becoming a professor at a place like ETH Zürich is not something I even dared to dream of.
+I still cannot quite believe that this is actually happening (I will be *professor*?!??), but [the news is out](https://twitter.com/CSatETH/status/1548944615285350400) so I guess this is real. :D
+
+<!-- MORE -->
+
+I feel excited and terrified in about equal parts.
+Excited by all the new possibilities, by the prospect of working with students and inspiring the next generation of researchers;
+terrified by all the responsibility and the prospect of having to stand in a classroom and give a lecture in only a few months' time.
+But somehow everyone else seems confident that I can do this, so I guess I'll just play along and hope that I will not prove them wrong...
+
+I am also humbled and eternally thankful for being given this opportunity.
+Being able to work in an environment like ETH is a privilege beyond imagination, and I don't know how I got so lucky.
+I probably used up all my Karma points for the rest of my life, and will do my best to honor this privilege.
+I feel hugely indebted to everyone I worked with, first and foremost of course my PhD advisor [Derek Dreyer](https://people.mpi-sws.org/~dreyer/).
+But I would also like to specifically call out the Rust community, because I don't think this would have happened without Rust -- thanks to *everyone* who contributed to this language that I am essentially building my career on[^rust], and thanks in particular to everyone who indulged in my ideas for how Rust should approach unsafe code and helped me shape that corner of the language.
+
+[^rust]: Before anyone gets worried, I also have some [ideas](https://iris-project.org/) I want to pursue that are unrelated to Rust. But Rust is currently by far the biggest inspiration for new research problems for me, and without Rust I don't think my research would be anywhere near as applied and impactful as it is today, which I am sure played a key role in the decision of ETH to hire me.
+
+So what's next?
+I will soon finish my post-doc at MIT and move back to Europe, and then move to Zürich in October.
+And then I will have to figure out how this being-a-professor thing works. ;)
+My first main priority is building a research group: the "Programming Language Foundations Lab"[^lab].
+So if you are interested in doing a PhD or post-doc working on, well, programming language foundations, and in particular formal foundations for Rust, or if you are an ETH student interested in a Master Thesis in that area -- please [reach out](https://research.ralfj.de/contact.html)!
+I am still figuring out how to do things like hiring people and finding suitable projects, but there is no shortage of open problems that need solving and theorems that need proving. :)
+
+[^lab]: Yes, I have a lab coat. I don't usually wear it though... and if you want to see me wear it, that will cost you some beer.
projects / web.git / commitdiff