Juan Zhai

Juan Zhai is an Assistant Professor in the Manning College of Information & Computer Sciences (CICS) at University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she co-directs the Laboratory for Advanced Software Engineering Research (LASER) and participates in the UMass NLP group. Her academic career spans over 7 years of active service including program committee roles at top-tier conferences like ICSE, FSE, and ASE.

Her research focuses on Software-AI Synergy with core areas including:

• Formal Specification Synthesis for precise software behavior definition
• Comment Generation and Maintenance using LLMs
• Trustworthy AI through bias detection and framework testing
• Deep Learning Infrastructure Reliability

Recent work demonstrates strong emphasis on practical tools for AI safety and software dependability.

Her publication trends show consistent output in top software engineering venues (ASE, ICSE, FSE) with increasing focus on AI/ML conferences (ACL, CVPR, ICLR). Key themes include metamorphic testing for deep learning frameworks, bias analysis in LLMs, and formal methods for specification synthesis.

She actively serves the community through:

• Program committees for 13 major conferences
• Reviewing for 5 top journals including TOSEM and TSE
• 40+ total reviews across SE and AI venues

Juan mentors PhD students including Gehao Zhang (research focus: Software Engineering, AI Safety) and teaches graduate courses like CS520 (Theory and Practice of Software Engineering) and CS692P (Hot Topics in SE Research). She leads the LASER lab which develops tools like C2S, CPC, and DevMuT for software reasoning and AI infrastructure testing.