Fabio Palomba

Fabio Palomba is an Associate Professor at the Software Engineering (SeSa) Lab within the Department of Computer Science at the University of Salerno, Italy. He leads research in software engineering with a particular focus on AI/ML systems engineering and has established himself as a prominent figure in empirical software engineering through his extensive publication record and leadership roles.

Palomba received his European PhD degree in Management & Information Technology from the University of Salerno in 2017, with his thesis earning the prestigious 2017 IEEE Computer Society Best PhD Thesis Award. His academic journey included a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Salerno (2011-2013) with 110/110 magna cum laude, and a Bachelor's degree from the University of Molise (2008-2011).

His research spans software maintenance and evolution, empirical software engineering, source code quality, and mining software repositories. More recently, his work has significantly expanded into AI/ML engineering, with particular emphasis on fairness in ML systems, code smells in ML pipelines, and the socio-technical aspects of developing AI-powered applications. Palomba has co-authored over 200 papers in international conferences and journals, establishing himself as a leading researcher in empirical software engineering with growing influence in Software Engineering for AI (SE4AI).

Analysis of Palomba's recent publications reveals a strategic research direction toward addressing critical challenges at the intersection of traditional software engineering and AI/ML systems. His work tackles issues including ML-specific code smells, fairness-aware practices in ML engineering, vulnerability detection in software, and requirements engineering enhanced by large language models. This cohesive research agenda positions him at the forefront of ensuring the quality, reliability, and ethical considerations of AI-powered systems.

• 2017 IEEE Computer Society Best PhD Thesis Award
• ACM/SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Awards (ASE'13, ICSE'15)
• IEEE/TCSE Distinguished Paper Award (ICSME'17)
• Best Paper Awards (CSCW'18, SANER'18)
• SNSF Ambizione grant (2019)
• IEEE Computer Society Technical Council of Software Engineering Rising Star Award (2023)
• 16 Distinguished/Outstanding Reviewer Awards

Palomba has served in numerous leadership roles in the software engineering community. He was program co-chair of SANER 2024 and ICPC 2021, industrial track co-chair of SANER 2022, and NIER/ERA track co-chair of ASE 2022. He has served on editorial boards of prestigious journals including Springer's Empirical Software Engineering Journal (since 2021), Elsevier's Information and Software Technology Journal (since 2022), and IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (since 2020). His research is supported by competitive grants including the SNSF Ambizione grant, one of Europe's most prestigious individual research awards.

At the University of Salerno, Palomba leads the Software Engineering (SeSa) Lab, which focuses on empirical studies of software quality, maintenance, and evolution, with increasing emphasis on AI/ML systems engineering. His work bridges traditional software engineering concerns with the emerging challenges of AI/ML systems, making significant contributions to the development of practical tools and methodologies for improving the quality and reliability of modern software systems.