Phil McMinn

Phil McMinn is a Professor of Software Engineering at the University of Sheffield, UK, where he leads the Testing Research Group, one of the largest software testing groups in the UK. His research focuses on developing automated techniques for software testing to help developers maintain robust test suites that effectively find bugs.

His primary research interests include Software Testing, Search-Based Software Engineering, Flaky Tests, Mutation Analysis, and Pseudo-Tested Code. Recently, his work has centered on helping developers detect and mitigate flaky software tests, as well as developing mutation analysis approaches to assess test suite quality. His research has been funded by the EPSRC and Meta.

Analysis of his recent publications (2023-2025) reveals a strong focus on addressing critical challenges in software testing, particularly around test flakiness, pseudo-tested code detection, and test suite optimization. His work spans both theoretical foundations and practical tool development, with significant contributions to understanding the limitations of current testing practices and developing novel approaches to improve test reliability and effectiveness.

Professor McMinn serves as an associate editor for the Software Testing, Verification and Reliability journal and has supervised ten PhD students to completion as first supervisor. He currently mentors five PhD students and a post-doctoral researcher on projects related to test flakiness, mutation analysis, and testing for autonomous systems.

He teaches the first-year COM1001 Introduction to Software Engineering module and the third-year COM3529 Software Testing and Analysis module at the University of Sheffield, emphasizing team-based development, automated testing, and code quality improvement through refactoring.