Madeline Endres

Madeline Endres is an Assistant Professor at the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst. She co-directs the LASER Lab and holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan (2024), alongside degrees in Computer Science and Cello Performance. Her research focuses on improving programmer productivity and wellbeing through interdisciplinary approaches combining software engineering, psychology, and medicine.

Her research interests include:

• Programmer cognition and skill acquisition
• Developer tool design and evaluation
• Impact of external factors (e.g., psychoactive substances, workplace policies) on software development
• Neuroimaging studies of programming tasks

Key achievements include Distinguished Paper Awards at ICSE 2024 and FSE 2023, and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2020). She actively contributes to program committees for major software engineering conferences.

Current projects include VR-based spatial reasoning training for novices, TMS experiments to identify cognitive causality in programming, and controlled studies on cannabis use and programming ability. She also maintains the CS Grad Job Guide to support early-career researchers.