Malin Altenmüller

I'm a postdoc in the Quantum Programming Group within the Quantum Software Lab at the University of Edinburgh, working on programming languages for quantum systems.

Before that I was a PhD student in the Mathematically Structured Programming Group at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. My thesis discusses combinatorial representations of string diagrams for non-symmetric monoidal categories, and can be found [here] (version before corrections).

During some of my PhD I was also a research intern with the Programming Languages Group at Huawei in Edinburgh.

I'm interested in graphical languages, combinatorial graph theory, programming language theory, type theory, applied category theory, and quantum programming languages.

Do get in touch if you're interested in any of these topics!
malin [dot] altenmuller [at] ed [dot] ac [dot] uk

My pronouns are she/her.

News

I am one of the organisers of the Quantum Informatics Spring School 2026 on the Isle of Skye.
Save the date: 24-29 of May 2026, and keep an eye on the website for confirmed details.

Papers

Combinatorial Presentations of String Diagrams for Non-Symmetric Monoidal Categories (PhD Thesis)
     Document available [here] (version before corrections)

A Category of Surface-Embedded Graphs (MA, R. Duncan)
    at Applied Category Theory 2022, document available on [arXiv]
We introduce a categorical formalism for rewriting surface-embedded graphs. Such graphs can represent string diagrams in a non-symmetric setting where we guarantee that the wires do not intersect each other. The main technical novelty is a new formulation of double pushout rewriting on graphs which explicitly records the boundary of the rewrite. Using this boundary structure we can augment these graphs with a rotation system, allowing the surface topology to be incorporated.

Abstracts

Strictness by Rewrite: Formalising Bipermutative Categories and Quantum Program Semantics in Agda
    poster at PLanQC, 12/01/2026, [abstract], [poster], link to the github repository

Read the Mood Mode and Stay Positve - adding polarity annotations in Agda
    joint work with J. Ceulemans, L. Escot, A. Nuyts, J. Poiret
     at TYPES in València, 12/06/2023, [abstract]

A Category of Plane Graphs
    at SYCO9 in Como, 09/09/2022, [abstract] and [slides], this talk was voted the Best Student Presentation of the event

A Datatype of Planar Graphs
     at TYPES in Nantes, 23/06/2022, [abstract] and [slides]

TypOS: An Operating System for Typechecking Actors
    joint work with G. Allais, C. McBride, G. Nakov, F. Nordvall Forsberg, C. Roy
    at at TYPES in Nantes, 23/06/2022, [abstract] and [talk recording]

Containers of Applications and Applications of Containers
    at TYPES in Oslo, 13/06/2019

Talks

Reasoning with strict symmetric monoidal categories in Agda
    at the Women in EuroProofNet 2025 workshop, co-located with TYPES 2025, 10/06/2025, [slides]

A Data Type of Intrinsically Plane Graphs
    at the British Colloqium for Theoretical Computer Science BCTCS, 14/04/2025, [slides]

Notions of Monads and Comonads in Programming
    at the Edinburgh Category Theory Seminar, 19/03/2025

A Category of Graphs with Substitution and Pattern Matching
    invited talk at CATNIP, 19/11/2024, [slides]

Plane Graphs, (Co-)Operads, and Pattern Matching
    at MSP 101, 26/01/2024, [recording]

Contour Categories, Control Flow Analysis
    at the Huawei-Edinburgh Joint Lab Workshop, 12/12/2023, [slides]

A Category of Surface-Embedded Graphs
    invited talk at the GReTA Seminar Series, 08/09/2023, [slides], [recording]

Control Flow as a Contour of Data Flow

•     at a Workshop on Diagrammatic Methods in Edinburgh, 24/01/2023, [slides]
•     at MSP 101, 09/06/2023, [slides]

A Category of Surface-Embedded Graphs
     at ACT in Glasgow, 21/07/2022, [slides]

Decorated Trees
     at SPLS (online), 20/10/2021, [slides]

Some Thoughts on a Datatype for Higher Genus Graphs
    at MSP 101, 25/02/2021, [slides]

A Combinatorial Presentation of the Operad of Plane Graphs

•     at STRINGS3 in Birmingham, 02/09/2019, [slides]
•     at MSP 101, 30/08/2019

Containers of Applications and Applications of Containers
    at SPLS in St Andrews, 13/03/2019

Finitary Indexed Containers
    at MSP 101, 15/02/2019

Involvement

I am one of the organisers of the Quantum Informatics Spring School 2026 on the Isle of Skye.

I am a member of the TYPES Steering Committee (term: 2025-2028).

I was one of the organisers of the Scottish Programming Languages and Verification Summer School, SPLV 2025, in Edinburgh.

I served on the Program Committee for TYPES 2025.

Links