James C. Davis

James C. Davis is an Assistant Professor at the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Purdue University). His research focuses on socio-technical approaches to software engineering, emphasizing security, correctness, and usability in software-intensive systems. He leads the Duality Lab, which publishes in top venues like ICSE, USENIX Security, and EMSE, with funding from the NSF, Google, Cisco, and Rolls Royce.

• PhD in Computer Science from Virginia Tech
• Current research themes: software supply chain security, pre-trained model engineering, and empirical studies of developer practices

His recent publications (2025) analyze LLM jailbreaking, software signing (Sigstore), IoT model optimization, and deep learning reproducibility. Supported by grants from NSF OAC Core (multi-modal deep learning infrastructure) and RFE (prompt engineering education). Recognized with the ASEE Best Paper Award (2024) for trust engineering research. Current students include Paschal Amusuo (PhD candidate), Wenxin Jiang (now at Socket), and Dharun Venkatraman (Chateaubriand Fellow).

Advising highlights:

• Guided 7 PhD/MSc theses (2022-2025)
• Developed CodeQL experience report (709 defects in 258 projects)
• Industry collaborations: Google, Microsoft Research, Qualcomm

Research trends from 2022-2025 show sustained focus on:

• Software security (supply chains, signing, ReDoS)
• Model engineering (IoT optimization, naming conventions)
• Empirical methods (interview studies, defect analysis)
• Human factors (developer practices, training effectiveness)