Gemma Catolino

Gemma Catolino is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science, University of Salerno, and affiliated with the Software Engineering (SeSa) Lab. She has also served as an Assistant Professor at Tilburg University and Eindhoven University of Technology through the Jheronimus Academy of Data Science from September 2022 to December 2023, and previously as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Delft University of Technology and Tilburg/Eindhoven institutions.

• PhD in Computer Science, University of Salerno (2020), supervised by Prof. Filomena Ferrucci
• MSc in Management and Information Technology, University of Salerno (2016, magna cum laude)
• BSc in Computer Science, University of Molise (2014)

Her research centers on empirical software engineering, focusing on both technical and social aspects affecting software development. Key areas include code smells, defect prediction, testability, changeability, and the emerging concept of “Community Smells”—social dysfunctions in developer teams. She investigates how human factors, team diversity (especially gender), and developer experience influence software quality and maintenance effort, often using mining software repositories and machine learning techniques.

Her recent publications span high-impact journals and conferences such as IEEE TSE, EMSE, JSS, ICSE, and ICSME, with a strong trend toward integrating social and technical metrics for just-in-time defect prediction in mobile applications, analyzing community dynamics, and applying software quality metrics to cybersecurity contexts like dark web analysis. She has also contributed to MLOps and serverless computing.

She has received several honors including a DEI research grant (2020), Best Technical Paper at BENEVOL 2019, first and second place in ACM Student Research Competitions (2018, 2017), and the Best Master Thesis award from the Italian Software Metrics Association (2017).

Gemma Catolino has been actively engaged in academic service as a referee for top journals like IEEE TSE, EMSE, JSS, and IST, guest editor for special issues, and program/organizing committee member for major conferences including ICSE, MSR, SANER, and MobileSoft, where she served as Program Co-Chair in 2022. She has also contributed as a teaching assistant, lecturer, and course coordinator in machine learning and software engineering courses.

She leads and contributes to research projects involving international collaborations, particularly with researchers such as Prof. Filomena Ferrucci, Prof. Andy Zaidman, Prof. Willem-Jam van den Heuvel, and Prof. Alexander Serebrenik. Her work bridges empirical software engineering with practical tool development and socio-technical analysis, positioning her at the forefront of modern software engineering research.