Code Smell Detection Professors and Supervisors

Xin XiaView profile

Professor

Max Planck Institute for Security and PrivacyGermany

Xin Xia is a Qiushi Distinguished Professor at the College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University. Previously, he served as the Chief Expert and Director of the Software Engineering Application Technology Lab at Huawei Technologies, China from 2021 to 2025. His academic career spans software engineering research with a focus on AI applications in the field. Ph.D. from Zhejiang University (2014) Supervised by Prof. Xiaohu Yang and Prof. Jianling Sun Visiting student at Singapore Management University (2012-2014) under Prof. David Lo Xin Xia's research primarily focuses on applying data science techniques to software engineering problems. His work spans AI for Software Engineering, Mining Software Repositories, Empirical Software Engineering, and Large Language Models for code understanding and generation. He employs data mining, information retrieval, natural language processing, search-based algorithms, and program analysis to transform software engineering data into automated tools and insights. His recent publications show a strong trend toward leveraging Large Language Models for various software engineering tasks, including code generation, vulnerability detection, and test generation. He has been exploring how to make these models more effective, reliable, and practical for real-world software development scenarios, with a particular focus on Java and Python ecosystems. ACM SIGSOFT Early Career Researcher Award (2022) ACM Distinguished Member 16 best or distinguished paper awards, including nine ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Awards Recipient of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 2021 Best Paper Award Runner-Up Xin Xia has advised numerous students who have gone on to publish in top software engineering venues. His research has been supported by grants from both academic institutions and industry partners, particularly during his time at Huawei. He actively collaborates with researchers worldwide, especially with David Lo at Singapore Management University. At Zhejiang University, Professor Xia leads research in the intersection of AI and Software Engineering. His work has practical applications in improving developer productivity through automated tools that analyze software repositories and provide actionable insights.

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Hui LiuView profile

Professor

Max Planck Institute for Security and PrivacyGermany

Hui Liu is a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Technology at Beijing Institute of Technology, where he leads research in AI-based software development with a focus on LLM applications. His work spans software refactoring, quality improvement, and maintenance, funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Key Research and Development Program of China. PhD from Peking University (2008) Former graduate student at Software Engineering Institute, Peking University Distinguished member of China Computer Federation Secretary-General of CCF Technical Committee on Software Engineering Professor Liu's research centers on LLM-based program generation, evaluation and testing of large language models, software refactoring techniques, and automatic construction of software engineering datasets. His work bridges artificial intelligence and software engineering, with particular emphasis on improving code quality through empirical studies and machine learning techniques. Current projects include code contamination detection, context-aware naming recommendations, and refactoring validation using LLMs. His research has evolved from traditional code smell detection to cutting-edge applications of large language models in software development. Liu's publication record shows a strong trend toward LLM applications in software engineering, with recent work focusing on code review generation, commit message generation, and refactoring validation using large language models. His research combines empirical methods with machine learning approaches, often analyzing large code corpora from open-source projects. The work spans both theoretical foundations and practical tool development, with several contributions merged into Eclipse as part of the open-source community. ACM Distinguished Paper Award (ESEC/FSE 2023) ACM Distinguished Paper Award (ICSE 2022) RE'2021 Best Research Paper Award IET Software Premium Award (2018) New Century Excellent Talents in University (2013) Beijing Higher Education Young Elite Teacher (2013) Professor Liu actively mentors PhD and Master's students, with recent graduates including Waseem Akram (awarded Outstanding Graduate) and several students publishing at top venues. His research is supported by major Chinese funding agencies, and he serves on program committees for leading software engineering conferences including ASE, ICSE, and FSE. He maintains strong industry connections through contributions to Eclipse and studies of open-source ecosystems like Rust. Liu leads a research group focused on AI for software engineering, with active projects on code generation, refactoring, and quality improvement. The group collaborates extensively with international researchers and contributes directly to open-source tools, particularly in the Eclipse ecosystem where multiple refactoring improvements have been merged.

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Xiao YuView profile

Researcher

Max Planck Institute for Security and PrivacyGermany

Xiao Yu is a Research Fellow (Assistant Research Professor) at the State Key Laboratory of Blockchain and Data Security, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. Previously, they were a Postdoctoral Researcher at Huawei under Prof. Xin Xia. They hold dual PhD degrees: from Wuhan University's School of Computer Science (December 2020) supervised by Prof. Jin Liu, and from City University of Hong Kong's Department of Computer Science (March 2021) supervised by Prof. Qing Li and Prof. Jacky Wai Keung. Research focuses on three interconnected domains: LLMs Data Governance and Evaluation addressing hallucination phenomena and task-specific LLM evaluation in software engineering; Intelligent Software Engineering leveraging deep learning for code generation, annotation, and maintenance; and Software Security and Reliability investigating vulnerability detection, log anomaly identification, and security bug classification. Their work bridges theoretical advancements with industrial applications, particularly in blockchain and data security contexts. Recent publications demonstrate strong trends in realistic LLM evaluation (RealisticCodeBench), vulnerability detection using semi-supervised learning, and industrial anomaly detection. Key thematic areas include effort-aware defect prediction, code smell detection, and the practical application of large language models in software engineering tasks, with increasing emphasis on data quality and privacy considerations. Xiao Yu actively contributes to the academic community through extensive service roles including journal reviewing for ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, and serving on program committees for major conferences like APSEC 2025 and ASE 2025. They have supervised numerous graduate students as evidenced by authorship patterns in publications. Based at Zhejiang University's State Key Laboratory of Blockchain and Data Security, their research operates at the intersection of academic rigor and industrial relevance, with strong collaborations spanning multiple institutions including Huawei, Wuhan University, and City University of Hong Kong.

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Lu XiaoView profile

Assistant Professor

Max Planck Institute for Security and PrivacyGermany

Lu Xiao is an Assistant Professor in the School of Systems and Enterprises at Stevens Institute of Technology, where she conducts research in software engineering with a focus on software architecture, software economics, cost estimation, and software ecosystems. Dr. Xiao completed her PhD in Computer Science at Drexel University in 2016 under the supervision of Dr. Yuanfang Cai. Her doctoral research focused on the relationship between software architecture and quality attributes. Her research spans several key areas in software engineering with emphasis on empirical methods. She investigates how software architecture influences quality attributes, studies software economics and cost estimation techniques, and examines the dynamics of software ecosystems. Her work frequently analyzes real-world software projects, particularly those in the Apache Software Foundation, providing insights into software maintenance patterns, testing practices, and performance issues. Dr. Xiao has developed practical tools like SAIN for software architecture infrastructure and eFish'nSea for performance education. Analysis of Dr. Xiao's publication record reveals consistent contributions to empirical software engineering, particularly in software architecture analysis, testing methodologies, and performance issues. Her research often centers on Apache projects, demonstrating methodological rigor in studying real-world development practices. She has made significant advances in understanding test refactoring, mocking frameworks, and the identification of performance bottlenecks through linguistic analysis of issue reports. Dr. Xiao has actively contributed to the software engineering research community through service on program committees for major conferences including ASE, ICSE, ESEC/FSE, and ICSA. Her work on program committees spans multiple tracks including Research Papers, Student Research Competition, and specialized workshops. As an academic advisor, Dr. Xiao guides graduate students in research on software architecture analysis, testing practices, and performance optimization. Her research methodology combines empirical analysis of large software repositories with tool development and validation, ensuring practical relevance of her findings. Dr. Xiao leads research efforts focused on understanding the relationship between software architecture and quality attributes. Her current work on bots in pull requests represents cutting-edge research into automation in open source development processes, continuing her tradition of investigating real-world software engineering phenomena.

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Masud RahmanView profile

Associate Professor

Max Planck Institute for Security and PrivacyGermany

Masud Rahman is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University, Canada, where he leads the RAISE Lab. Previously a tenure-track Assistant Professor, he completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science/Software Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan and a postdoctoral fellowship at Polytechnique Montreal. His academic career demonstrates strong progression with significant research impact in software engineering. Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University (Current) University of Saskatchewan (Ph.D. studies) Polytechnique Montreal (Postdoctoral research) Dr. Rahman's research focuses on the intelligent automation of software maintenance and evolution, particularly targeting software debugging, code search, and code reviews. His work strategically combines Software Engineering with Artificial Intelligence techniques including Machine/Deep Learning, Information Retrieval, Mining Software Repositories, and Natural Language Processing. His industry experience as a professional developer for three years significantly shaped his research direction toward solving practical software maintenance challenges that cost the global economy billions annually. His research program addresses critical problems in software bug detection, diagnosis, explanation, and reproduction, with increasing focus on AI-powered and simulation modeling software. His publications demonstrate consistent output in top-tier venues including 7 papers at ICSE (A*), 3 at FSE (A*), 3 at ASE (A*), 8 at EMSE (A), 6 at ICSME (A), and 9 at MSR (A). The research trends show increasing focus on deep learning applications for software engineering problems, with particular attention to code search, bug localization, and debugging automation. His work has evolved from traditional information retrieval approaches to incorporate advanced neural network techniques and generative AI. Governor General's Gold Medal 2019 U of S Doctoral Thesis Award 2019 CS Best PhD Thesis Award 2019 TCSE Distinguished Paper Award Most Influential Paper Award Dr Keith Geddes Award Dalhousie Belong Research Fellowship President's Gold Medal (Bangladesh) Dr. Rahman has secured $500K+ in competitive research funding as Principal Investigator, including an NSERC Discovery Grant, Mitacs Accelerate International, and Climate Action and Awareness Fund. He actively collaborates with industry partners including Metabob Inc., Mozilla Firefox, and Vendasta Technologies. His service to the community includes extensive program committee work for major conferences and journal reviewing. He leads the RAISE Lab, which focuses on developing AI-powered solutions for software maintenance challenges, with current projects emphasizing sustainable software innovation and sustainable AI as part of Dalhousie's strategic goals.

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Mohammad Adnan HamdaqaView profile

Associate Professor

Max Planck Institute for Security and PrivacyGermany

Mohammad Adnan Hamdaqa is an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Engineering and Software Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal (Canada), where he leads the Software and Emerging Technologies Lab. He holds a Ph.D. in Software Engineering from the University of Waterloo (2016), along with a Master's in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Concordia University, an MBA from New York Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor's in Computer Engineering from Jordan University of Science and Technology. His research focuses on the intersection of emerging technologies and software engineering, particularly how software engineering approaches can be adapted for new platforms like Cloud Computing and Blockchain. His work spans model-driven software engineering, cloud applications, and blockchain technologies. Analysis of his recent publications reveals a strong emphasis on blockchain technology, especially smart contracts and Ethereum, with significant work on security, evolution, and visualization of these systems. His research also demonstrates growing integration of large language models in software engineering tasks, particularly for model specification and code generation. There's also a notable thread of work on sustainability in infrastructure as code and security practices across cloud platforms. Hamdaqa actively contributes to the academic community as a member of IEEE Computer Society and ACM, and has served on program committees for numerous conferences in software engineering and services communities. He has successfully supervised multiple Master's students, with recent theses focusing on smart contract auditing, epidemiological modeling using model-driven approaches, and security practices in infrastructure as code. His lab maintains active research in both theoretical and applied aspects of software engineering for emerging technologies.

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Simone ScalabrinoView profile

Assistant Professor

Max Planck Institute for Security and PrivacyGermany

Simone Scalabrino is an Assistant Professor at the University of Molise, Italy, where he is part of the STAKE lab. He also serves as CSO at Datasound. His academic career includes teaching courses such as Automated Software Delivery and Object-Oriented Programming at the University of Molise. Dr. Scalabrino received his Ph.D. from the University of Molise in 2019 with a thesis entitled "Automatically Assessing and Improving Code Readability and Understandability," supervised by Prof. Rocco Oliveto. He earned his Master's Degree in Computer Science from the University of Salerno in 2015 and his Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from the University of Molise in 2013. His research interests focus on Software Quality, Software Testing, Software Security, and Empirical Software Engineering . Dr. Scalabrino's work spans multiple areas including code readability assessment, software testing methodologies, Docker container analysis, game quality assessment, and voice user interface testing. His research often combines empirical methods with machine learning techniques to address practical software engineering challenges. Analysis of his recent publications reveals a strong focus on improving software quality through various approaches. His work spans code readability assessment, Docker container analysis, game quality testing, and voice user interface evaluation. There's a clear trend toward applying machine learning techniques to traditional software engineering problems, particularly in the areas of code understanding, defect prediction, and quality assessment. His research often involves large-scale empirical studies with real-world data from open source projects and commercial applications. Scientific Awards Distinguished Reviewer Award @ FSE 2025 Distinguished Reviewer for TSE (2023) Best Reviewer Award for JSS (2022) ACM Distinguished Paper Award @ MSR 2019 ACM Distinguished Paper Award @ ASE 2017 ACM Distinguished Paper Award @ ICPC 2016 Dr. Scalabrino has been actively involved in mentoring students through research projects, though specific student names are not listed in the provided information. He has served on program committees for numerous prestigious conferences including ASE, ICSE, ICPC, and FSE. His service extends to reviewing for top-tier journals such as Transactions on Software Engineering and Empirical Software Engineering. He leads or contributes to several research projects including DevProDev, which focuses on developer-centered recommendation systems, and ATTICUS, a tele-monitoring system for ambient-assisted living. Dr. Scalabrino has also developed multiple research tools such as Code Readability Predictor, TIRESIAS, OCELOT, CLAP, and ACRyL to address various software engineering challenges.

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Yutian TangView profile

Assistant Professor

Max Planck Institute for Security and PrivacyGermany

Dr. Yutian Tang serves as an Assistant Professor (UK Lecturer) and Principal Investigator at the School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, where he supervises PhD students and leads research in AI-driven software engineering. His academic journey includes a PhD from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University's Department of Computing. His research spans AI+SE integration , particularly focusing on Large Language Models for program analysis, software testing, and Android security. Key areas include: LLM-assisted vulnerability detection and repair Empirical studies of real-world software systems Privacy protection mechanisms Configuration compatibility in mobile applications Smart contract security optimization His publication portfolio shows a clear trajectory toward AI-augmented software engineering , with recent work demonstrating how LLMs can enhance taint analysis, binary code similarity detection, and test generation. This evolution reflects the field's broader shift toward AI integration while maintaining rigorous empirical validation. Award highlights include: Best Industry Paper Award at ISSRE'18 Elevation to IEEE Senior Member (2024) Three Android OS defects confirmed by Google Security Team As an active researcher and community contributor, Tang serves on 40+ program committees including PLDI, ICSE, and FSE. His work receives funding from National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shanghai Science Commission, OpenAI, and Google. Current projects focus on automated bug localization and LLM-based testing frameworks, with recent grants from OpenAI Cybersecurity and Google Cloud programs. He leads research groups investigating Android security and AI-assisted program analysis, collaborating with institutions like Lund University.

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