Zachary J. Oster

Zachary J. Oster serves as Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science within the College of Letters & Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. His office is located in McGraw 108 (150 Hamilton Green Way, Whitewater, WI 53190) where he can be reached at (+1) 262-472-5006 or osterz@uww.edu.

Oster completed his academic journey with a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Iowa State University in August 2013 under advisor Samik Basu, following an M.S. from the same institution in December 2009. His undergraduate education at South Dakota State University yielded dual degrees in May 2007: a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.A. in Music.

Dr. Oster's research program focuses on enhancing requirements engineering practices through innovative integration of formal methods and computational techniques. He specializes in modeling and analyzing stakeholder preferences using conditional importance networks (CI-Nets), developing efficient algorithms for identifying preference conflicts, and creating visualization tools for requirement preferences. His work bridges theoretical formal methods with practical requirements engineering challenges, particularly in component-based systems and service composition. He actively collaborates with researchers at Iowa State University including Samik Basu and Ganesh Ram Santhanam.

His publication trajectory reveals an evolution from foundational service composition research toward more human-centered requirements engineering approaches. Early work focused on service substitutability and composition algorithms, while recent publications emphasize listening techniques for requirements elicitation and scalable preference analysis. The consistent thread throughout his career is applying formal verification methods to practical software engineering problems, particularly in preference reasoning and requirements analysis.

• Recipient of the 2017 University Faculty/Staff Academic Advising Award

Dr. Oster has demonstrated exceptional commitment to student mentorship, recognized by his 2017 advising award. Since October 2022, he has coordinated UW-Whitewater's cybersecurity programs, overseeing curriculum development and student pathways. His research has received support including a UW-Whitewater Strategic Initiative grant (with Lopamudra Mukherjee as PI) for visualizing requirement preferences. He has mentored undergraduate researchers including Josh Leinberger and Pablo Martinez on visualization projects.

While not leading a formally named research lab, Dr. Oster has established productive research collaborations through the Formal Methods & Verification Group at Iowa State University. His work on the UW-Whitewater Software Development Center (noted in 2018-2019 course listings) represents an applied effort to connect classroom learning with industry experience. His research group has focused on practical applications of formal methods to real-world requirements engineering challenges.