Professor portrait: Marco Carbone was always going to be a computer scientist

By Mette Strange Mortensen

For Professor Marco Carbone computers and programming have always been a big interest. When he was around eight years old, he taught himself to program in a language called Basic, and he has been doing computer science ever since. Right now, Marco Carbone’s research is focused on correctness of concurrent software. 

“I was always just interested in doing computer science. When I was a kid, I wanted to work in the industry because I thought it was a bad idea to be a researcher. But as soon as I started university, I started liking research, because I had some great teachers, and they made me fall in love with the field of programming languages and semantics of programming languages,” says Marco Carbone, “Now, I work with concurrent programming and software correctness, which is making sure that, when you write code, you write it correctly. My research focuses on how software that is deployed in different locations, interact with each other.” 

Marco Carbone’s research can be used in many different everyday scenarios. Most people use many different types of software every single day, that interacts in different ways and therefore we are all dependent on software correctness and reliability. 

“Computers are everywhere, and computing is part of so many things in everyday life, it could be in schools, in finance or in healthcare. These systems are critical, in the sense that it's vital to make sure that, the software you use is actually correct,” says Marco Carbone. 

On 19 September 2025 at 15:00, Marco Carbone will give his inaugural lecture in Auditorium 02 at the IT University of Copenhagen. The lecture will focus on his research in concurrent programming, and the issues that are raised with concurrent programming.

The uncertainty of research

Marco Carbone has been a researcher for more than 20 years. For him being a researcher can be compared to solving mysteries. 

“My favourite part of the job is, when I want to do something, but I don’t know where it leads to, if I even can solve or how I am going to solve it. I find that so exciting. The uncertainty of where you can get your answers. I find this very attractive,” says Marco Carbone. 

The next mystery Marco Carbone is going to solve is related to probabilistic systems. He recently received a grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark for the project PROBABILIstic Session Types (PROBABILIST). 

“I want to focus my research on probabilistic concurrent systems because, nowadays things are so complex, and it is almost impossible to say this code is correct or this is secure. It is better to say this thing works 99% of the time. The idea of the project is to start investigating the probabilistic approach, where you can say this thing is this much likely to do this or to do that,” says Marco Carbone.