Gustavo A. Oliva

Gustavo A. Oliva is an Adjunct Professor at Queen's University in Canada, where he leads the blockchain research team at the Software Analysis and Intelligence Lab (SAIL). His research focuses on enabling cost-effective decentralized applications on programmable blockchain platforms like Ethereum, alongside empirical studies in software ecosystems, code analytics, and explainable AI.

Dr. Oliva earned his PhD from the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil under Professor Dr. Marco Gerosa. Prior to his current role, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Queen's University supervised by Professor Dr. Ahmed Hassan.

His primary research spans programmable blockchains, software ecosystems (particularly npm), code analytics, and explainable AI. He employs static analysis, historical repository mining, and machine learning to investigate software evolution, dependency management, and smart contract development. Current projects address gas efficiency challenges in Ethereum, upgradeability patterns in smart contracts, and the impact of foundation models on software engineering practices.

Recent publications reveal a dominant focus on blockchain systems (70% of recent work), with growing emphasis on foundation model challenges (FMware). His Ethereum research explores transaction processing, gas optimization, and technical debt, while newer work catalogs software engineering challenges in trustworthy AI-powered systems.

Scientific recognition includes:

• Microsoft Azure for Research sponsorship
• Capes/CNPq scholarship for Visiting Research at Queen's University (2014)
• HPE scholarships for Smart Cities and Cloud Service Choreography projects
• European Commission FP7 funding for CHOReOS project

Dr. Oliva actively mentors 8+ students across academic levels. His PhD advisees include Muhammad Ahasanuzzaman (ongoing), Amir Mohammad Ebrahimi, and Filipe Cogo (now at Huawei). Master's students Michael Pacheco and Ahmad Abdullah Zarir now work at Huawei and Amazon respectively. He also supervises visitor and undergraduate researchers in blockchain projects. His service includes program committees for ICSE, SANER, and MSR conferences, plus tutorial leadership at ASE, KDD, and FSE.

As director of SAIL's blockchain research team, he manages projects on Ethereum smart contract analysis, npm dependency ecosystems, and AI-driven software engineering. Current initiatives include SPICE (automated issue labeling) and foundational work on trustworthy FMware development, with industry collaborations at Huawei and Amazon.