Software Composition and Modeling Laboratory

With Barrett Bryant, I co-direct the newly formed Software Composition and Modeling Laboratory (SOFTCOM).
 

Research Interests

In general, my interests lie in the area of Software Engineering. My specific interests include:

• Aspect-Oriented Software Development
• Model-Integrated Computing
• Generative Programming
• Program Transformation
• Distributed Object Computing
• Real-Time and Embedded Systems
• Speech Enabled Development Environments
   

Current Funded Projects

Model Weaving and Model Driven Program Transformation

In collaboration with the Institute for Software Integrated Systems at Vanderbilt University, I have two DARPA grants during my first year at UAB. Both of these projects are concerned with model and program transformation of a large-scale avionics application within the distributed real-time embedded system domain. My students Jing Zhang and Jane Lin are supported by this grant.

Constraint-Specification Aspect Weaver (C-SAW)

The C-SAW weaver is a research project investigating the idea of applying aspect-oriented principles to model-integrated computing. From this project, model weavers have been created that allow for the modularized specification of crosscutting model properties.

More information, including a motivation for the project and related publications,  is available at the C-SAW Project Page.
 

Model-Driven Program Transformation

We are also conducting research into the idea of performing large-scale invasive adaptation on a large avionics application (more than 3 million SLOCs). We have several papers under review that describe this effort and a separate web page for this will be created soon.

These projects are funded by the DARPA/IXO Program Composition for Embedded Systems (PCES) program.

Undergraduate Research: Model-Driven Synthesis of Robot Control Software

Through support from the CRA Collaborative Research Experience for Women (CREW) program, I am advising the research efforts of two female undergraduate Honors students. The goal of this project is to synthesize Lego Robot control software from models that specify the terrain of a hostile environment. A web page describing the UAB Robot CREW is available here.
 

Other Projects Under Review

I have several grant proposals that are now out for review. Please check back here later if you are interested in research on program and model transformation, embedded systems, and new capabilities for software development environments (Eclipse).

A key focus of my future work with Suman Roychoudhury is the GenAWeave project, which investigates language-independent aspect weaving using a program transformation system.

A new project for me is SpeechClipse, which investigates speech-enabled software development environments.

With my student Hui Wu, we are working on supporting domain-specific language environments with software engineering tools (e.g., debuggers, testing engines, and profilers). The initial phase of this work is the DSL Debugger Framework (DDF).

With several colleagues from UAB (Faizan Javed, Jing Zhang, and Barrett Bryant) and Marjan Mernik from Slovenia, the MARS project is investigating the application of grammar inference algorithms to recover metamodels.

Miscellaneous Stuff

Visit the Software Engineering Family Tree.
 

My Erdos number is 3.
 

My  "time-waster" project is the construction of a list of Ambiguous or Incomplete/Inconsistent Natural Language Statements. Some of these are very funny, yet the collection has been referenced in several papers and books as a source of such material.