After 16 years as a faculty member, Professor Darko Marinov can point to several reasons for the success of Illinois CS software engineering researchers.
Darko Marinov
Not a single reason is more important, though, than the people who surround him in the offices and classrooms at the Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science.
Constant interaction, based around a desire to push this area of computing forward, has led to a high level of discovery and execution. It also provides the impetus to never slow down, never back away from new challenges, never stop seeking new insight.
Indications of Excellence in Software Engineering
Sam Cheng
Citing friendly faculty members whose accessibility and encouragement bolstered his research efforts, Illinois CS PhD student Sam Cheng enjoyed conducting the research on reordering configuration testing that won the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award.
“This project was definitely worth all of the effort,” Cheng said. “Because we have such a unique advantage in terms of faculty and student resources – derived from a collaborative vibe coming from state-of-the-art researchers in software engineering and systems – I cannot imagine how this result could be accomplished anywhere else.”
Other recent examples of excellence in software engineering at Illinois CS include:
Wenyu Wang
Wenyu Wang’s Distinguished Paper Award at ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering. Authors also included professors Tianyin Xu and Tao Xie.
Tao Xie
Recent awards from ACM SIGSOFT: Tao Xie won Distinguished Service Award in 2021; Lingming Zhang won Early Career Researcher Award in 2021; August Shi won Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award in 2021.
Reyhaneh Jabbarvand
New Illinois CS Assistant Professor Reyhaneh Jabbarvand’s Google PhD Fellowship, which lasted from 2018-2020 in Programing Technology and Software Engineering for her work on advancing energy testing of Android. Currently, Jabbarvand’s research focuses on neural program analysis and autonomy testing of self driving cars.
Darko Marinov
Test-of-time awards: Darko Marinov won two ACM SIGSOFT Impact Paper Awards (only one given per year, the only person with two such awards).
Sasa Misailovic
Illinois CS professor Sasa Misailovic earned Honorable mention, Test of Time Award, at ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE).
“Software engineering is about teams organizing to handle specific responsibilities for an associated project. How do we write code? How do we test code? How do we deploy code?” Marinov said. “This combination of practical and intellectually stimulating work done here on a consistent basis proves academic relevance. Nothing helps this process more than having faculty members right down the hallway from me who serve as experts in related areas.
“Their willingness to share in a collaborative spirit pushes our work forward.”
Currently, Marinov and five faculty colleagues comprise the software engineering area: Reyhaneh Jabbarvand, Sasa Misailovic, Tao Xie, Tianyin Xu and Lingming Zhang.
Marinov said that their progress often comes from collaboration, but for that to occur, a number of interactions must take place.
Take, for example, the way Marinov, Xu and Zhang each guided PhD student Sam Cheng’s work to become the 2021 ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award winner.
From a kernel of an idea, Cheng worked with faculty to form a research paper titled, “Test-case prioritization for configuration testing.” Reviewers of the ACM SIGSOFT Award heralded this as the world’s first solution using …….