Ajay Jha

Ajay Jha is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at North Dakota State University (NDSU), where he leads the Software Testing and Maintenance (STAM) Lab. His academic journey began with industry experience, followed by graduate studies and postdoctoral research that shaped his current focus on software engineering research.

His educational background includes:

• Ph.D. in Computer Science from Kyungpook National University (2017)
• Master's degree from Kyungpook National University (2013)
• Over five years of industry experience before graduate studies, including co-founding two startups
• Postdoctoral research at University of Alberta (over two years) and Kyungpook National University (three years)

Dr. Jha's research focuses on software engineering, particularly in the areas of software testing, maintenance, and evolution. His work centers on mining large-scale software repositories to uncover real-world issues in software quality, reliability, and maintainability. He develops innovative tools and techniques to address challenges in regression testing, library migration, and mobile application development. His research has significant practical implications for improving software development processes and enhancing the reliability of modern software systems, particularly in mobile and Python environments.

His publication record shows a clear progression from Android-focused research to broader software engineering challenges, with recent work emphasizing Python library migration and large language models for software engineering tasks. His research methodology typically involves empirical studies of real-world software repositories combined with tool development to address identified challenges.

Dr. Jha is actively involved in academic service, serving on program committees for major software engineering conferences including MSR, ICSME, SANER, ASE, and ICSE. He also reviews for prestigious journals such as IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering and ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology.

At NDSU, he teaches a range of courses from undergraduate to graduate level, including Mobile Software Engineering, Software Development Processes, and Software Project Planning and Estimation. He also leads graduate seminars on specialized topics like 'LLMs for Software Testing and Maintenance' and 'Code Smell and Refactoring.'

He leads the Software Testing and Maintenance (STAM) Lab at NDSU, which focuses on mining software repositories to identify quality issues and developing practical tools to address software maintenance challenges. The lab's research has produced several benchmarks (PyMigBench, JTestMigBench) and tools (TRec) that have been shared with the research community.