Jeff Tian's General Research Interests in Software Engineering

My general research area is software engineering, with a strong emphasis on research that has a practical impact. Much of my research is conducted in collaboration with and partially funded by IBM (IBM SWS Toronto Laboratory and Centre for Advanced Studies), Nortel Networks, Lockheed-Martin, and other industrial partners, and supported by NSF and THECB.

My key research interests are summarized below, with links to dedicated pages for each sub-area. Many of the application aspects, in connection to my collaborations with industrial partners, are described in a related page.

1. Effective Software Testing, Analysis, and Optimization

For more information and related testing tools, click here.

2. Software Measurement, Analysis and Improvement

Measurement and analysis of software products and processes, with a focus on improvement, specifically: For more information and related tool support, click here.

3. Software Reliability: Assessment and Improvement

My research in this area concentrates on effective models and techniques that not only help us evaluate product reliability but also improve reliability and testing process. Relevant research results have already been used in several large software products in IBM and Nortel for product quality improvement. I'm also working on extending this approach to cover the entire software lifecycle and diverse types of software products. For more information, click here.

4. Software Safety

I'm interested in the analysis and prevention of hazardous conditions in computer-controlled safety-critical systems, and automatic checking of prescriptive specifications to guard system consistency and integrity. For more information, click here.

5. Risk Identification, Management, and Software Prototyping

I am interested in various statistical analysis techniques that can be used in analyzing software engineering data, particularly various risk identification techniques that can help us identify problematic areas. Software prototyping can also be used in conjunction with these techniques to reduce software development risks/uncertainties and to optimize development processes. For more information, click here.

6. Integration of Software Technologies

I am also working on the integration of the above to form a comprehensive strategy for measurement, analysis and quality improvement covering the whole software and system life-cycle for large software systems and safety-critical systems. For more information, click here.


Prepared by Jeff Tian (tian@engr.smu.edu). Last update May 2, 2003.

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