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:
- Abhishek Chandar (Machine Learning Associate at Vector Institute)
- Jaekwon Lee (Research Associate at SnT Centre, Luxembourg)
- Khouloud Gaaloul (Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn)
- Raja Ben Abdessalem (Data Scientist Researcher, Luxembourg)
- Bing Liu (Software Engineer, Luxembourg)
- Reza Matinnejad (Amazon, Luxembourg)
- Stefano Di Alesio (Chief Data Scientist, Oslo)
- Razieh Behjati (Google, London)
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