Owolabi Legunsen

Owolabi Legunsen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University's College of Engineering. His research focuses on software engineering with particular emphasis on software testing and runtime verification. He maintains an active teaching schedule with courses including Runtime Verification (taught Fall 2020, Spring 2022-2025) and Software Testing (taught Spring 2021, Fall 2021-2023, Fall 2025).

Dr. Legunsen's research interests center around improving software reliability through advanced testing methodologies. His work spans runtime verification, where he develops techniques to monitor software behavior during execution, and regression test selection, where he creates methods to optimize the testing process as software evolves. His research also extends to cloud systems configuration testing and inline testing approaches. He is part of Cornell's growing Software Engineering Group and maintains an active research program with numerous publications in top-tier software engineering conferences.

His recent publications show a clear trend toward making runtime verification more efficient and practical for real-world software testing scenarios. The research spans foundational verification techniques, tool development for practical application, and empirical studies examining overheads and effectiveness in different contexts. His work increasingly integrates evolution-aware approaches that account for how software changes over time.

• ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award (ISSTA 2024)
• ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award (ISSTA 2023)
• ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award (ASE 2016)

Dr. Legunsen actively mentors PhD students and postdocs, with several co-authored publications indicating strong student involvement in his research program. His work has been supported by research grants that enable his investigations into software testing and verification techniques. He regularly serves on program committees for major software engineering conferences including ICSE, FSE, ASE, and ISSTA, demonstrating his standing in the research community. Dr. Legunsen maintains close collaborations with researchers at multiple institutions, particularly in the areas of cloud systems and configuration testing.

His research group develops practical tools like TraceMOP for explicit-trace runtime verification, ExLi for inline-test generation in Java, and pytest-inline for Python testing. These tools bridge theoretical research with practical application, allowing his techniques to be evaluated in real-world settings and adopted by practitioners.