STEM Faculty

Professional biography

I am a Professor in Computer Science in the School of Computing & Communications at The Open University, UK and a member of the Software Engineering & Design research group.  Prior to this position I was a Professor at the School of Science and Technology, City University London. 

I am a strong advocate of a multidisciplinary approach to software engineering to understand, enable, and engineer societal complex systems. I am involved in imultidisciplinary research projects that combine technology with other domains such as food security, circular economy, healthcare, and sociology.

I have been research active in the areas of software and service engineering where I have published extensively. Broadly, my research interests include service-oriented computing; secure software engineering; composition and adaptation of software systems; cloud computing; validation of software systems; and traceability of software artefacts. More recently, my research has focused on the digitalisation of the food supply chain, including the challenges of traceability, ethics and adaptation in the domain of food security; and the operationalisation of human values in software systems and supply chains.

I hold a Parnas Fellowship from the Irish Software Research Centre (Lero).

I have served in several academic leadership positions, including member of the EPSRC ICT Strategy Advisory Team (since January 2022); EPSRC EDI Strategy Advisrory Group; programme chair of major international software engineering conferences (ASE’05, FASE’12, ESEC/FSE’17, ICSE/NIER’18, RE’20, ICSE/Workshops’21, ICSE’22 Area Chair); member of the editorial boards of various journals (IEEE TSE, Springer JSS, and Science of Computing Programming Journal, Transactions on Service Computing); vice-chair of the IFIP Working Group 2.9; and member of steering and programme committees of the main conferences in software engineering. 

I have been principal and co-investigator in European, EPSRC, and industry funded research projects, including the most recent EPSRC Internet of Food Things DE Network+ project, the UK Manufacturing Symbiosis DE Network+ project, and the SAUSE: Secure, Adaptive, Usable Software Engineering Platform Grant project.

I hold a PhD degree in Computer Science from Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, UK; and MSc and BSc degrees in Computer Science from Brazil. I was a research fellow at University College London, UK and I have worked as a software system consultant, developer and analyst in several organisations. I have also been a visiting researcher at AT&T Labs Research, USA.

Research interests

My research interests lie in the areas of software and service engineering to enable a society-focused software research strategy. My interests consider values, ethical and adaptation challenges in software systems, in food supply chains, and in digital manufacturing circular economy. My areas of research include:

• adaptation of software systems; 
• service discovery, service adaptation, service composition, service verification, service reputation and trust; 
• consistency management and traceability of software artefacts; 
• conflict management in systems of systems; 
• design and verification of secure software systems; 
• interoperability of distributed systems; 
• values operationalisation in software system and supply chains.

Some recent research projects relevant to the above research interests include:

• The Internet of Food Things (EPSRC DE Network +)
• UK Manufacturing Symbiosis (EPSRC DE Network +)
• Drone Identity (EU H2020 SESAR JU EngageKTN
• SAUSE: Secure, Adpative, Usable Software Engineering (EPSRC Platform Grant)

For a list of my publications visit Google Scholar.

Teaching interests

I have an interest in software engineering and databases education. I have experience of face-to-face teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels at City University London; of distance undergraduate and postgraduate education at The Open University; and of professional training and tutorials in industry and at international conferences and workshops. 

I have developed and managed various courses and curriculum during my academic career and have a long-standing experience in UG Final year, MSc and PhD students’ supervision.

Impact and engagement

Membership of Professional and Academic Societies

• EPSRC ICT Strategy Advisory Team (Member since January 2022)
• (Chair) 2023 SIGSOFT Awards Committee (Outstanding Research, Distinguished Service, Influential Educator)
• 2022 SIGSOFT Awards Committee (Outstanding Research, Distinguished Service, Influential Educator)
• IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing) Working Group (WG) 2.9 - Software Requirements Engineering (Since February 2010) 
• IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing) Working Group (WG) 2.14 – Services Oriented Systems (Founder member - Since June 2010)
• Associate Member of the IEE 
• ACM and IEEE Member
• XML UK Member
• RESG Member - Requirements Engineering Specialist Group of the BCS

Membership of Steering Committees

• European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering – ESEC FSE (since 2016).
• IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (since 2020).
• European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software – ETAPS (2010 - 2013).
• Member of the International Scientific Committee of the International Summer School on Software Engineering (since 2011).
• Automated Software Engineering Conference Series (2005 - 2016).
• Workshop on Traceability in Emerging Forms of Software Engineering Series (since July 2005).

Membership of Editorial Boards

• Service Oriented Computing and Applications Journal (Springer), past.
• Transactions on Software Engineering (IEEE Computer), past.
• Journal of Systems and Software (Elsevier), past.
• Science of Computer Programming Journal (Elsevier), 2020 to present.
• Transactions on Service Computing (IEEE Computer), 2022 to present

Technical Organising Committees / Programme Chair Committees 

• 44th International Conference of Software Engineering (ICSE 2022), Pittsburgh, USA (Area Chair). 
• 45^th International Conference of Software Engineering, (ICSE 2023), Australia, (Journal First Track Co-Chair).
• 28^th Working Conference on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ 2022), March 2022 (Doctoral Symposium Co-Chair). 
• 28^th Requirements Engineering Conference (RE’20), Zurich, August/September 2020 (Programme Co-chair).
• 43th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2021), Madrid, May 2021 (Workshops Co-chair).
• 40^th International Conference on Software Engineering – New Ideas and Emerging Results (NIER 2018 – ICSE 2018), Sweden, May-June 2018 (Programme Co-Chair).
• 12^th Joint Meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC FSE 2018) – Journal First, USA, November 2018 (Programme Co-Chair).
• 11^th Joint Meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC FSE 2017), Germany, September 2017 (Programme Co-Chair).
• 36^th International Conference of Software Engineering (ICSE 2014), Hyderabad, India, June 2014 (Mentoring Co-Chair)
• 7^th International Workshop on Traceability in Emerging Forms of Software Engineering – In conjunction with the 35^thInternational Conference of Software Engineering (ICSE 2013), San Francisco, May 2013 (Contest Chair)
• 15^th International Conference on Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering (FASE 2012), Estonia, March-April 2012 (Programme Co-chair)
• 4^th European Conference ServiceWave 2011, Poland, October 2011 (Programme Chair of the Services Engineering Fundamentals Track)
• 33^rd International Conference of Software Engineering (ICSE 2011), Hawaii, May 2011 (Demonstrations Co-Chair)
• 32^nd International Conference of Software Engineering (ICSE 2010), Cape Town, May 2010 (Research Demonstrations Co-Chair)
• 2^nd International Workshop on Principles of Engineering Service Oriented Systems (PESOS 2010) - In conjunction with the 32nd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2010), Cape Town, May 2010 (Organising Co-chair).
• 19^th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2010), Australia, September 2010 (Mentor Program Chair).
• 17^th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2009), Atlanta, September 2009 (Posters and Research Demos Co-Chair)
• 7^th International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC – ServiceWave 2009), Stockholm, November 2009(Publicity Co-Chair)
• Computer Science 2008, Cambridge, December 2008 (Organising Committee)
• 2^nd Workshop on Service Oriented Software Engineering (IW-SOSWE 2007) – In conjunction with the ESEC/FSE 2007 Conference, Croatia, September 2007. (Organising Co-chair). 
• International Symposium of the Grand Challenges for Traceability (GCT_TEFSE) – Kentucky, USA, March 2007 (Programme Co-Chair)
• 1^st Workshop on Service Oriented Software Engineering (IW-SOSE 2006) – In conjunction with the 28^th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2006), China, May 2006. (Organising Co-chair).
• The 20^th IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2005), Long Beach, USA, November 2005. (Programme Co-chair).
• The 19^th IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2004), Linz – Austria, September 2004. (Doctoral Symposium Co-chair).
• The 12^th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2004), Kyoto – Japan, September 2004. (Posters and Research Demos Chair).
• 2^nd International Workshop on Traceability in Emerging Forms of Software Engineering – In conjunction with the 18^th IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering – ASE 2003, Canada, October, 2003. (Organising/Programme Co-chair).
• International Workshop on Intelligent Technologies for Software Engineering – In conjunction with the ESEC FSE 2003 Conference, Helsinki, September 2003. (Organising/Programme Co-chair).
• 1^st International Workshop on Traceability in Emerging Forms of Software Engineering – In conjunction with the 17^th IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering – ASE 2002, Edinburgh, September 2002. (Organising/Programme Co-chair).