Vera Pantelic is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Computing and Software at McMaster University. Her research focuses on software engineering practices for model-based development in automotive systems, particularly centralized Electrical/Electronic (E/E) architectures, Simulink modeling, and supervisory control of probabilistic discrete event systems. Education: Not explicitly mentioned in the text. Her scholarly activity includes extensive contributions to conferences and journals in automotive software engineering, model transformation, and real-time systems. Her work addresses challenges in modularity, documentation, and compliance within automotive embedded systems. Her recent publications emphasize advancements in centralized E/E architectures, model-driven testing, and assurance cases for automotive safety. She collaborates on topics integrating software engineering principles with automotive domain requirements. Scientific Awards: No specific awards mentioned in the text. She serves as an advisor in software engineering, though specific student names are not listed. Her projects involve simulation-based testing, model refactoring, and compliance frameworks, supported by industry partnerships and academic grants. Her work contributes to labs and teams focused on automotive software reliability and model-driven engineering. No explicit lab or team affiliations are detailed in the provided text.
Professor Rachel Harrison is a Professor in Computer Science at the School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics, Oxford Brookes University. Her research focuses on software metrics, machine learning, and requirements engineering with emphasis on empirical and automated software engineering solutions. She has over 160 publications and extensive industry collaborations with organizations like IBM and Philips Research Labs. Her work has been recognized through roles as Editor-in-Chief of the Software Quality Journal and leadership in conferences such as ICSE and ESEM. She leads the Dependable System Engineering Centre (DSERC) and is part of the Artificial Intelligence, Data Analysis and Systems (AIDAS) Institute and the Applied Software Engineering and Data Analytics (ASEDA) Group. Her research projects include AI applications for big data analysis (AIMi), automated review classification (ReClass), and software quality improvement (SEQUIN). Professor Harrison has served on over 50 international program committees and initiated workshops like RAISE and AIRE. Her teaching includes advanced computer science modules and leadership in courses like Essential Maths for University Study and Advanced Software Development . Her work bridges academic research and practical applications, particularly in healthcare technology (e.g., diabetes management systems) and mobile application usability. She advocates for rigorous software quality practices and has contributed to frameworks for requirements validation and risk assessment in software projects.
Sarah E. Chasins is an Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) department at the University of California, Berkeley, with research spanning programming languages and human-computer interaction. She leads the PLAIT Lab (Programming Languages for Approachable and Inclusive Tools) and serves as a faculty affiliate at the Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS). Her work bridges computer science with social sciences, climate reporting, legal systems, and biological research through extensive collaborations. Dr. Chasins' research focuses on democratizing programming for non-traditional programmers including scientists, social scientists, journalists, and data scientists. Her work emphasizes creating approachable programming tools that help practitioners reach correct programs while understanding, extending, and trusting those programs. She specifically investigates program synthesis, programming tools for scientific domains, and human-centered programming language design. Her research mission aims to make programming a path to a more informed and evidence-driven society rather than just a way to get wrong answers faster. Her recent publications demonstrate a clear trajectory toward making programming more accessible and understandable. The work spans code search techniques, program synthesis approaches, refactoring tools, and studies of how domain experts interact with programming languages. A consistent theme across her research is placing human needs at the center of programming language design and implementation. Dr. Chasins actively mentors PhD students including Justin Lubin, Eric Rawn, Parker Ziegler, Sarah "Slim" Lim, Hellina Hailu Nigatu, David Minh-Duy Cao, and Marlena Preigh. She has previously advised numerous master's and undergraduate students who have gone on to work in both academia and industry. Her teaching includes core courses like CS164 (Programming Languages and Compilers) and specialized courses like CS294-184 (Building User-Centered Programming Tools) and CS39-001 (Technology, Society, and Power). She maintains an active service record in the programming languages community, having served on program committees for major conferences including PLDI, POPL, OOPSLA, and SPLASH. Notably, she co-chaired the Student Research Competition at PLDI 2020 and 2021 and has been involved in organizing workshops focused on programming languages and human-computer interaction.
Todd Millstein is a Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He served as the Computer Science Department Chair from 2022-2025 and is also an Amazon Scholar. His research focuses on making software systems more reliable through programming languages techniques, with significant contributions to network verification and probabilistic programming. Millstein received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington Department of Computer Science, where he was a member of the Cecil group led by Craig Chambers. Prior to that, he completed his undergraduate studies at Brown University under the guidance of Paris Kanellakis and Pascal Van Hentenryck. Millstein's research spans several areas of programming languages and systems with a focus on reliability. He has made significant contributions to network verification, developing the Batfish network configuration analyzer which is now managed by Amazon Web Services and forms the basis of Oracle Cloud's Network Path Analyzer. His work has been recognized with the ACM SIGCOMM Networking Systems Award in 2025. He also works on interactive program verification through lemma synthesis and scalable reasoning methods for probabilistic programming languages. His research bridges programming languages theory with practical systems challenges, as highlighted in his SPLASH/OOPSLA 2024 keynote "Everything is a Program (even if it's not)". Millstein's recent publications demonstrate a consistent focus on verification and reliability across multiple domains. His work shows a progression from foundational programming language techniques to practical applications in networking and probabilistic systems. Key themes include data-driven approaches to program analysis, synthesis of verification artifacts, and applying programming languages techniques to non-traditional domains like network configuration. Millstein's scientific achievements have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards including an NSF CAREER Award, an ACM SIGPLAN Most Influential PLDI Paper Award, an ACM SIGCOMM Networking Systems Award, IEEE Micro Top Picks selection, best-paper awards from PLDI, OOPSLA, and SIGCOMM, a Microsoft Research Outstanding Collaborator Award, an Okawa Foundation Research Grant, an IBM Faculty Award, and a Facebook Research Award. He has also received both the Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Award (for junior faculty) and the Eon Instrumentation Inc. Excellence in Teaching Award (for senior faculty) from UCLA Engineering. Millstein advises several Ph.D. students including Ana Brendel, Poorva Garg (co-advised with Guy Van den Broeck), Rajdeep Mondal (co-advised with George Varghese), and Rathin Singha (co-advised with George Varghese). His research has been supported by various grants including an NSF CAREER Award, Okawa Foundation Research Grant, IBM Faculty Award, and Facebook Research Award. He has also been a Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Intentionet, which was later acquired by Amazon Web Services. Millstein is actively involved in the Batfish project, an open-source network configuration analyzer that has had significant practical impact. Batfish is now managed by AWS, powers Oracle Cloud's Network Path Analyzer, and is used by dozens of companies. His research group continues to work on network reliability, developing techniques for scalable BGP policy verification and behavioral testing of protocol implementations.
Silverio Juan Martinez Fernandez is a Professor at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) , affiliated with the Barcelona School of Informatics (FIB) and the Department of Service and Information Systems Engineering . He is a core member of the inSSIDE and GESSI research groups. His expertise spans Empirical Software Engineering , Green AI , MLOps , and Software Analytics . Education: Bachelor's in Computer Engineering PhD from UPC in Software Engineering Master's in Computing Research Interests: Focuses on sustainable AI practices, energy-efficient ML systems, and MLOps education. He investigates architectural design for green AI, energy labeling tools for ML models, and agile software development methodologies. His work bridges theoretical research and industrial applications, emphasizing data-driven decision-making. Grants & Collaborations: Leads projects like Green AI-Based Systems Architecture and Q-Rapids , funded by national and EU programs. Collaborates with institutions like Softeam and industry partners to apply software analytics in real-world scenarios. Labs & Teams: Coordinates the inSSIDE group, focusing on integrated software and data engineering. Active in organizing conferences like GREENS and ESEM , and co-develops tools like Skuld for technical debt management.
Bihuan Chen is an Associate Professor at the College of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Fudan University, specializing in software engineering with focus on software supply chain security and trustworthy AI systems. His research spans multiple programming languages including JavaScript, Python, Java, and C/C++ across application and AI domains. Dr. Chen earned his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Fudan University in 2009 and 2014 respectively, followed by postdoctoral research at Nanyang Technological University (2014-2017). His research interests include software supply chain risk assessment, trustworthy AI systems, and program analysis. His recent publications demonstrate strong focus on malicious package detection in NPM/PyPI ecosystems, vulnerability patch porting using LLMs, and safety verification for autonomous driving systems. The work shows increasing integration of machine learning techniques with traditional program analysis approaches, particularly evident in the 2024-2025 publications that leverage LLMs for vulnerability detection and code refinement. ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award (FSE 2016, ASE 2018, ASE 2022, FSE 2025) IEEE TCSE Distinguished Paper Award (ICSME 2020, SANER 2023) CCF Prototype Competition Awards (2nd and 3rd Prizes) Dr. Chen has advised over 50 students including current PhD candidates and notable alumni now at Huawei, ByteDance, and other leading tech firms. His fuxi platform assesses security, legal, and maintenance risks across the software engineering lifecycle. He serves on program committees for major conferences including ICSE, FSE, ASE, and ISSTA, and as Associate Editor for the Journal of Software: Evolution and Process.
Fernando Sánchez-Figueroa is a Full Professor at the University of Extremadura's Department of Computer Systems Engineering and Telematics. He is a co-founder of Homeria Open Solutions, a spin-off engaged in R&D projects under EU frameworks. His research focuses on Software Engineering, Machine Learning, Data Visualization, and Ambient Intelligence. He has authored over 50 scientific articles and led numerous R&D contracts with public and private entities. Key roles include: Academic: Full Professor at University of Extremadura Entrepreneur: Co-founder of Homeria Open Solutions Research: Participation in EU-funded projects and development of AI-driven solutions for healthcare, smart cities, and education Research Interests: Machine Learning applications in healthcare, predictive analytics for education, and sustainable smart city technologies. His work bridges theoretical advancements with practical implementations, such as medical image segmentation using SAM models and cost-efficient UAV systems. Publications: Recent works include decision support systems for employability analysis, zero-shot learning in medical imaging, and recommender systems for education. He emphasizes data-driven approaches and model-driven engineering in software development. Impact: Developed tools like CompareML for preliminary data analysis and LiveSankey for advanced web visualization. His contributions span academia and industry, addressing challenges in healthcare, urban sustainability, and educational technology.
Aldeida Aleti is a Professor in the Department of Software Systems & Cybersecurity at Monash University. Her research focuses on Automated Software Engineering, leveraging AI and optimization techniques for tasks like software design, testing, and repair. She has held roles including Chief Examiner for units like FIT4002 and FIT5136, and has contributed to teaching FIT3077 and FIT1008. Education: PhD in Software Engineering (Swinburne University of Technology, 2012), Master of Computer Engineering (Polytechnic University of Tirana, 2008), and Bachelor Honours in Computer Engineering (Yildiz Technical University, 2005). Research Interests: Automated software engineering, fitness landscape analysis, optimization, and search-based techniques. She leads projects like RAISE (Responsible AI Software Engineering) and collaborates on quantum computing and healthcare AI initiatives. Awards include the FIT Dean's Award (2016), Best Paper Awards (2015, 2011), and the Heidelberg Laureate Forum invitation (2014). She has been a grant assessor for the Australian Research Council since 2015. Advising: Accepting PhD students in AI-driven software engineering, optimization, and automated testing. Active in committees like the Faculty Research Committee and Early Career Researcher committee.
Kathryn Stolee is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina State University. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln under Sebastian Elbaum after graduating from the Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management. Her research spans multiple perspectives in software engineering: technical (program analysis), human (human aspects of software engineering, software product management), and educational (comparative comprehension of algorithms). Notable contributions include work on regular expression refactoring for improved comprehension, constraint solvers for code reuse identification, and cross-language code-to-code search to aid developers learning new languages. Dr. Stolee has secured over $2,000,000 in federal grants, including an NSF CAREER award. Her research combines analysis techniques (refactoring, semantic code search, code-to-code search) with human factors (comprehension, reuse, learning). Her scholarly contributions have been recognized with a National Science Foundation Faculty Early CAREER Award (2018) and a Best Paper Award at the International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM, 2011). Actively engaged in the software engineering research community, Dr. Stolee serves as an author, reviewer, and organizer at top conferences. She is committed to mentoring the next generation of computer scientists and has developed educational interventions focused on software testing and code comprehension.
Tracy Hall is Professor in Software Engineering at Lancaster University's School of Computing and Communications, where she holds a Chair in Software Engineering Research and serves as Director of Post Graduate Teaching. Previously, she was Professor and Head of Computer Science at Brunel University London, and has held visiting positions at University College London and adjunct roles at the University of Oslo. With over 20 years of empirical software engineering research experience, she maintains extensive industrial collaborations. Her research focuses on: Software defect prediction and automatic repair Code analysis methodologies Software testing frameworks Human factors in software development Empirical studies of developer behavior Tool development for software engineers She leads research in automated defect repair techniques and vulnerability prediction, with recent work exploring AI-driven approaches to software quality improvement. Her publication portfolio (100+ papers) shows consistent focus on software quality enhancement, with recent emphasis on explainable AI for vulnerability prediction (2025), developer-centric testing tools (2024), and human factors in bug resolution (2022). Research frequently involves large-scale empirical studies and industry partnerships. Awards include multiple best paper awards for her contributions to software engineering research. As Principal Investigator, she secured significant funding including: EPSRC Fixie project: £400,000 for defect prediction/repair (2018-2020) EPSRC Fault Analysis grant: £128,578 (2016-2019) Current PhD supervisees include Gaz Bennett, Jesse Phillips, and Miles Walker working on software engineering challenges. She contributes to the Cyber Security Research Centre , Security Lancaster , and DSI-Foundations research groups. Teaches courses on IT Architecture and Software Studio.
Marcus Gerhold is an Assistant Professor in the Formal Methods and Tools group at the University of Twente's Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science. His research focuses on model-based testing for software reliability in critical infrastructures, particularly railway systems, alongside significant contributions to game design and programming language analysis. His educational background includes: PhD in Computer Science from University of Twente (2018): Choice and Chance: Model-based Testing of Stochastic Behaviour MSc in Mathematics from Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena (2013): Embeddings of Weighted Morrey Spaces BSc in Mathematics from Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena (2011): Entropy-, Approximation- and Kolmogorov Numbers on Quasi-Banach Spaces Gerhold's research integrates theoretical model-based testing with practical critical infrastructure applications . His work on railway conformance testing addresses EULYNX controller validation, while his game design research explores affective mirroring in NPCs and procedural dungeon generation. The code modernity analysis stream leverages static analysis to quantify legacy code evolution across languages like Python and PHP, revealing version identification challenges through deep learning. Publication trends show consistent focus on model-based testing methodologies (40%), railway safety applications (25%), and innovative game design/code analysis (35%). Recent work increasingly incorporates AI/ML techniques for UML assessment and Python version identification, while maintaining rigorous formal methods foundations. He actively mentors 63 students across all academic levels and contributes to major research initiatives: STORM_SAFE (ERDF, 2024): Daily Supervisor for WP1/WP2 on software reliability for critical infrastructures ZORRO (KIC grant, 2023): Daily Supervisor for WP4 on zero downtime in cyber-physical systems MISSION (MSCA RISE, 2021-2025): Interim coordinator (early 2024) for space systems modeling As part of the Formal Methods and Tools research group, Gerhold participates in European collaborations while serving on SAC-SVT 2024 and FormaliSE 2023 program committees.
Joshua Garcia is an Assistant Professor in the Informatics Department at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), within the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences. His research focuses on software architecture, automated testing, and cybersecurity, particularly in autonomous systems and mobile applications. He leads projects like DeltaDroid, Doppelgänger Test Generation, and Darcy, which address software vulnerability management, architectural consistency, and safety-critical systems. Key achievements include an NSF CAREER Award (2025), an NSF CRI Grant (2018), and a DARPA competition win (2024). His work is adopted by organizations like Boeing, Google, and NASA. Garcia collaborates internationally, involving institutions in Padova and researchers like Luca, Jessy Ayala, and Philipp. Research Interests: Software architecture evolution, automated exploit generation, autonomous vehicle testing, and accessibility in software development Grants: NSF CAREER ($500K+), NSF CRI ($1M+) Labs/Teams: HexHive Group, Autonomous Systems Testing Lab
Clay C. C. Wang is a Professor and Department Chair of Pharmacology & Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Southern California, focusing on fungal secondary metabolism, biochemistry, and pharmacological applications of natural products. His research spans genetics, synthetic biology, and biotechnology. Key research areas include fungal secondary metabolite biosynthesis, CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, plastic biodegradation, and space microbiology. Email: clayw@usc.edu His recent articles highlight work on: Activating cryptic metabolic pathways through gene deletion and transcription factor engineering Developing biocatalytic systems for waste plastic conversion Investigating fungal responses to space station environments Engineering NAD+ analogs for ADP-ribosylation studies No scientific awards were mentioned in the provided text. No student names were listed.
Ruben Martins is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science and serves as the program director of the Master of Science in Computer Science (MSCS) . His research focuses on the intersection of constraint programming, program synthesis, analysis, and verification, with recent work aiming to make formal methods tools more accessible through automated reasoning. Ruben earned his Ph.D. with honors from the Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal (2013) , followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford (2014-2015) and UT Austin (2015-2017) . Research Interests : Ruben's work bridges constraint programming and program synthesis , with applications in software verification , optimization , and automated reasoning . He has developed award-winning tools like Open-WBO , a modular MaxSAT solver that has won gold medals in international competitions. His publications span top-tier venues such as POPL , PLDI , FSE , SAT , and CP , often addressing real-world challenges from program analysis to network security. Scientific Awards include: Distinguished Paper Award at PLDI 2018 Distinguished Paper Award at FSE 2021 Distinguished Paper Award at SAT 2022 Gold medals for Open-WBO in MaxSAT competitions Teaching & Advising : Ruben mentors Ph.D., Master’s, and undergraduate students in research projects related to program synthesis, formal methods, and constraint solving. He teaches courses such as Bug Catching: Automated Program Verification and Advanced Topics in Logic: Automated Reasoning and Satisfiability , emphasizing hands-on experience with tools like Why3. His advising spans topics from AI-driven program repair to network protocol verification , fostering collaboration across disciplines.
Tushar Sharma is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University, Canada. His research focuses on software engineering, particularly software quality, refactoring, technical debt, and the application of machine learning in software engineering (ML4SE). He leads the SMART Lab and is actively involved in projects related to Green AI and sustainable software development. PhD : Software Engineering, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (2019) MS : Computer Science, Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, India His research interests span software design and architecture, code and design quality, refactoring, technical debt, mining software repositories, and applied machine learning for software engineering. He is particularly interested in sustainable AI, green software engineering, and the use of large language models for code. His work bridges empirical studies with practical tool development to improve software maintainability and quality. His recent publications highlight a strong trend in code smell detection, refactoring automation, energy-aware AI, and the reliability of large language models in software engineering. He has developed tools like Designite and DPy and contributed datasets such as MaRV and DACOS, emphasizing empirical validation and reproducibility in software engineering research. Dean's Research Excellence Award Best Artifact Award, SCAM 2023 IEEE Senior Member Tushar Sharma has secured significant research funding, including an NSERC Discovery Grant for DevQOps, Mitacs Accelerate grants with industry partners, and contributions to the $154M Canada First Research Excellence Fund project. He actively mentors students and collaborates with industry. He leads the SMART Lab at Dalhousie and has organized workshops such as SATToSE 2018. He is also a founding developer of Designite, a widely used software design quality assessment tool.
