Chengnian Sun

Chengnian Sun is an Associate Professor at the Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Canada. His research focuses on software engineering and programming languages with an emphasis on software reliability and programming productivity.

• Education: Ph.D. in Computer Science from National University of Singapore (2013)

His work spans compiler testing (EMI, Dfusor, Kitten), program reduction (Perses, Vulcan, PPR), Android testing, and DNN testing. He has received multiple grants including Google Research Scholar Program (2025) and NSERC Discovery Grants (2024-2029). His recent publications focus on LLM-based compiler testing, weighted delta debugging, and ransomware resilience.

Scientific Awards:

• Most Influential Paper Award at SANER (2022)
• NUS Research Scholarship (2008-2012)
• ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award at ASE (2012)
• IBM Cup Campus Innovation Contest First Prize (2005)

He advises Ph.D. and MMath students in software engineering, compiler testing, and program analysis, including several who have contributed to top-tier conferences like ICSE, ISSTA, and ASPLOS. His service includes program committee roles in ICSE, OOPSLA, and ISSTA.