Alessandra Gorla

Alessandra Gorla is an associate researcher professor at IMDEA Software Institute in Madrid, Spain, with a strong background in software engineering research. She previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Andreas Zeller at Saarland University in Germany and completed her PhD under Mauro Pezzè at the University of Lugano in Switzerland. Her research bridges theoretical foundations with practical applications in mobile software systems.

Her research focuses on malware detection for mobile applications, automatic software repair, software testing and analysis. She has developed techniques for detecting behavior anomalies in graphical user interfaces, identifying third-party libraries in mobile apps, and leveraging intrinsic software redundancy for reliability. Her work spans both Android and iOS ecosystems, with particular attention to permission systems, release practices, and security implications.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a strong trend toward mobile application security and analysis, with increasing focus on iOS systems alongside traditional Android research. Her work combines static and dynamic analysis techniques, often incorporating natural language processing for comment analysis and test generation. There's a clear progression from foundational work on intrinsic software redundancy to more applied research on mobile security and testing.

• FRITZ-KUTTER AWARD! for PhD thesis on Automatic Workarounds
• BEST PAPER AWARD! for Search-based Security Testing of Web Applications
• BEST STUDENT POSTER AWARD! for Automatic Workarounds as Failure Recoveries

Dr. Gorla actively mentors students and seeks motivated individuals for internship and PhD opportunities in software engineering. She has served in various organizational roles including Tool Demonstrations co-chair for FSE 2016, Artifact Evaluation co-chair for ESSoS 2016 and ISSTA 2016, and multiple program committee positions at top software engineering conferences. Her work has been supported through collaborations with major research institutions and industry partners.

At IMDEA Software Institute, Dr. Gorla leads research on mobile application analysis, particularly focusing on behavioral analysis of Android and iOS applications. Her CHABADA prototype for clustering Android apps by description topics and identifying API usage outliers demonstrates her practical approach to malware detection. She also investigates intrinsic software redundancy for building more resilient systems.