Leon Moonen

Leon Moonen is a Research Professor and Head of the Data-Driven Software Engineering Department at Simula Research Laboratory in Oslo, Norway. He also holds a visiting professor position at the Department of Data Science and Analytics at BI Norwegian Business School.

His research focuses on developing advanced data-driven techniques and tools to help software engineers create more secure, trustworthy, and resilient systems. His work combines software analysis, machine learning and AI, software reverse engineering, software repository mining, program comprehension, and empirical software engineering.

Moonen's research addresses three main areas: (1) cybersecurity, particularly automated assessment and repair of software security vulnerabilities, as well as automated support for cyber threat intelligence; (2) autonomous self-healing systems, investigating how bio-inspired approaches can build more resilient systems; and (3) intelligent analytics to leverage data from software development, evolution, and operation to support decision-making.

His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on applying large language models to software engineering challenges, including automated programming, program repair, log analysis, and vulnerability detection. The research shows a progression from traditional software engineering approaches toward increasingly sophisticated AI-driven techniques.

Professor Moonen has led projects supporting smarter evolution and testing of safety-critical cyber-physical product families, high-integrity software engineering, and software analytics for continuous quality assessment. He collaborates closely with industrial partners including Kongsberg Maritime and Cisco Norway.

Before joining Simula, Moonen worked at Delft University of Technology and the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) in Amsterdam. He is also a co-founder of the Software Improvement Group (SIG), which has grown from 6 to over 150 employees since 2000.