Professor
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Ottawa

800 KING EDWARD AVENUE
OTTAWA ON K1N 6N5, CANADA
TEL: 613-562-5800 ext 2167
EMAIL:
Office: STE 5-100

About

I am a professor at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciecnce -- University of Ottawa.

Prior to coming to Ottawa, I was a senior scientist (2012 - 2019) at the SnT Center -- University of Luxembourg and a scientist (2009 - 2012) at the Simula Research Laboratory. I received my M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2003 and 2008, respectively.

Interested to work with us? Read about Sedna lab.

Research Interests:

  • Verification, analysis, and testing of complex systems such as autonomous vehicles and Internet of Things, including machine learning and security aspects
  • Applications of machine learning, evolutionary computing, and large language models to software engineering
  • Formal and empirical software engineering research methods

Students:

  • Jia Li (PhD)
  • Baharin Aliashrafi (PhD)
  • Behrad Moeini (PhD)
  • Mohammad Hossein Amini (PhD)
  • Delaram Ghobari (MSc)
  • Taoyu Wu (MSc)

Past Students:

Research:

My research interests are in software engineering, focusing on software verification and analysis of cyber physical systems and autonomous, connected and smart systems. In my research, I often draw on techniques from various disciplines, such as formal software and logical modeling, meta-heuristics optimization, machine learning, system and control engineering, and empirical methods.



In the past years, I have extensively worked on testing and fault localization of cyber physical systems and have applied my research to autonomous vehicles and IoT systems. Further, I have worked on the following topics related to requirements analysis, modelling, and design time analysis of CPS: requirements traceability and analysis, automated configuration of product line systems, designtime schedulability analysis, and simulation and modeling of CPS. I have, for the past ten years, been conducting my research in close collaboration with industry partners in telecommunication, maritime, energy, automotive and aerospace sectors.



Publications

A list of my publications is avaiable at DBLP and Google Scholar. A (partial) list of my publications is also available at Orbilu.lu.



Selected Talks

  • Next-Generation Software Testing and Verification: An AI Perspective, SEMLA 2022, Montreal [PDF]
  • Search-Based Testing for Formal Software Verification — and Vice Versa. Keynote talk at 12th Symposium on Search-Based Software Engineering, SSBSE 2020, Italy [PDF]
  • Testing cyber-physical systems via evolutionary algorithms and machine learning. Keynote talk at 12th International Workshop on Search-Based Software Testing, SBST@ICSE 2019, Canada [PDF]
  • Automated Testing of Cyber-Physical Systems. Huawei Workshop 2017, Luxembourg [PDF]
  • Testing the Untestable: Model Testing Cyber-Physical Systems. Technical Seminar at the AVL Engineering company, Austria (2016); at ASTech-Audi company, Germany (2016); at the Airbus company, France (2016). [PDF]
  • My Career and What I Learned Along the Way. Marie Sklodowska-Curie Conference 2015 COFUND Conference, Luxembourg [PDF]
  • Model-based Design Inspection based on Traceability Information Models and Design Slicing. Dagstuhl Seminar on Software and Systems Traceability for Safety-Critical Projects, 2015, Germany [PDF]


Teaching:

  • Selected Topics in Software Engineering: AI-enabled Software Verification and Testing (CSI 5137 B, uOttawa)
  • Software Construction (SEG 2106 [A/B], uOttawa)

Tools

  • EPIcuRus -- a tool for generating formal, environmental assumptions for CPS based on machine learning approaches
  • ARIsTEO -- a tool to generate faulty test inputs for Compute Intensive Cyber-Physical Models
  • SOCRaTEs -- a tool to generate automated test oracles for Cyber Physical System models
  • SimFL-- a tool for automated fault localization of Simulink models
  • SimCoTest-- a test generation tool for Simulink/Stateflow Controllers
  • CoCoTest -- a tool for testing dynamic continuous controllers
  • SafeSlice-- a SysML-based tool for model slicing and inspections
  • TReMer+ -- a tool for matching, merging and consistency checking of distributed models

Journals:

  • Associate Editor: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (2020 - 2024)
  • Review Board: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (2017 - 2019)

Recent Events:

  • 2025:
  • PC Chair: SEAMS
  • OC: ICSE Local Arrangement
  • PC: ICSE, ISSTA
  • 2024:
  • PC Chair: ICST
  • PC: ICSE, ISSTA, SEAMS, TCSE award selection committee, MODELS PB, MODELS Doctoral Symposium
  • 2023:
  • OC: ISEC Tutorials and Technical Briefings Co-Chair
  • PB: MODELS
  • PC: ICSE, ASE, SEAMS, ICST-- Testing Tools Track, MODELS Workshops, ISSTA Tool Demo, ESEC/FSE Tutorials, ASE Journal First Track
  • 2022:
  • OC: SEAMS Doctoral Symposium Chair, ASE Journal First Track Co-Chair
  • PB: MODELS
  • PC: ICSE, ASE, ICSE Student Mentoring, ACM SRC MODELS, MAPSOD, Doctoral Symposium@ASE, MODELS 10-Year Most Influential Award
  • 2021:
  • PC Chair: MODELS PI Track
  • PC: ICSE SEIP, ESEC/FSE, ICSME, ISSTA Tools, MAPSOD
  • 2020:
  • PB: ICSE, MODELS
  • PC: ESEC/FSE, SSBSE - Replications and Negative Results, MODELS DS
  • 2019:
  • PC Chair: SSBSE 2019
  • PC: ICSE, ESEC/FSE, MoDELS-Tools Workshop
  • 2018:
  • PB: MoDELS
  • PC: ICSE, ICSE-Workshops, ICSE-New Ideas, SSBSE-Hot off the Press Track, MoDELS-Tools Workshop