Bowen Xu

Bowen Xu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina State University (NC State), College of Engineering. His research focuses on software engineering, machine learning, and program analysis, particularly in securing AI models and improving code quality. He holds a PhD from Singapore Management University (SMU), where he also conducted postdoctoral research.

Education:

• PhD in Computer Science, Singapore Management University (SMU)
• Postdoctoral Researcher, SMU School of Computing and Information Systems

Research Interests:

• AI for Code, Backdoor Attacks on Code Models, Vulnerability Detection
• Code Representation Learning, Model Compression, Safety of AI Systems
• Chatbot Development for Developers, Automatic Code Review

Key Contributions:

• Developed PTM4Tag+, a Stack Overflow tag recommendation system using pre-trained models
• Explored stealthy backdoor attacks in code and reinforcement learning systems
• Pioneered work on automatic vulnerability repair using LLMs and broader input analysis

Awards:

• 2022: Honorable Mention Award (ACSAC)
• 2018: Highly Commended Full Paper Award (ESEM)

Service Roles:

• Editorial Board Member, Empirical Software Engineering Journal
• Program Committee Co-chair for ICSE/FSE Research Tracks
• Organized workshops like FORGE, MaLTeSQuE, and SEA4DQ

Labs & Teams: Leads the Softmax Lab at NC State, advising 12+ students across PhD, Master's, and undergraduate levels. Alumni include industry professionals at Microsoft, Barclays, and Marvell Semiconductor.