Manuel Rigger

Manuel Rigger is an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore's School of Computing, Department of Computer Science. He leads the Trustworthy Engineering of Software Technologies (TEST) Lab, focusing on improving data-centric systems' reliability. Prior to joining NUS, he was a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich and completed his PhD at Johannes Kepler University Linz.

His research centers on database systems reliability, software testing, and program analysis. Rigger's work has uncovered over 1,000 unique bugs in critical systems, significantly enhancing real-world software reliability. His research spans automated testing techniques, logic bug detection, query optimization, and compiler technologies, with strong practical impact through widely adopted tools like SQLancer.

Rigger's publication record shows consistent high-impact contributions, with recent work focusing on database isolation levels, cardinality estimation testing, and query plan guidance. His research bridges theoretical foundations with practical applications, addressing fundamental challenges in data management systems. The TEST Lab's approach combines traditional testing methods with innovative learning-based techniques to automate database validation at scale.

He has received numerous accolades including the EuroSys 2024 Best Paper Award, ICSE 2023 Distinguished Paper Award, and multiple Distinguished Artifact Awards. His work has been recognized with prestigious awards from Amazon Research, Google, and the Singapore government.

• EuroSys 2024 Best Paper Award for 'Validating Database System Isolation Level Implementations with Version Certificate Recovery'
• ICSE 2023 ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award
• ASPLOS 2022, OSDI 2020, and OOPSLA 2020 Distinguished Artifact Awards
• AWS Database Services Amazon Research Award 2024
• Singapore Open Research Award 2024

Rigger actively mentors students at all levels, with numerous Master's and Bachelor's theses supervised. His teaching includes courses on software engineering foundations and advanced software testing. He serves on program committees for major conferences including PLDI, ISSTA, and ASPLOS, and organizes workshops like the Fuzzing and Software Security Summer School. His research has practical industry impact with tools like SQLancer being widely adopted in the database community.