Andreas Zeller
Resume

Full Professor (C4/W3) at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany (since May 2003)

• I am currently working on three topics:
  • Mining Software Archives — What can we predict from the history of changes and errors? (A lot.)
  • Automated Debugging — when a program fails, can we automatically determine the cause for the failure? (We can.)
  • Mining Models — Can we generate abstractions that capture the common properties of multiple program runs? (Yes.)

• Wrote a textbook on debugging, entitled "Why programs fail: A systematic guide to debugging". Co-published by Morgan Kaufmann and dpunkt.verlag, it has won a Jolt Product Productivity Award.

  This is the first comprehensive textbook on debugging, covering a wide range of tools and techniques from hands-on observation to fully automated diagnoses. All this is built on a solid theory of how failures come to be.

• Held lectures at University of Washington as guest professor (March to June 2005)

  This is where I finished my debugging textbook and gave the first complete lecture on the topic.

• Visited Microsoft Research as guest researcher (September to October 2005)

  Tom Ball, Nachi Nagappan, and I have been the first to systematically analyze multiple failure databases at Microsoft, predicting failure-prone components in Microsoft products. See this article [FAZ.net, in German] and this paper for details.

• Got an offer for a full professorship on programming paradigms from Karlsruhe University (September 2006; declined).

Associate Professor (C3) at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany (2001 to 2003)

• Invented an effective and efficient method for isolating causes of program failures: Delta Debugging, applied on program states, isolates cause-effect chains from computer programs - "First, A happened, then B, and then C, which lead to the failure". The method is now publicly available via the AskIgor automated debugging services.

  Cause-effect chains can be extracted from programs as large and as obfuscated as the GNU C compiler. The impact of having automated debugging available for such programs cannot be estimated yet.

• Developed Memory Graphs as a means to capture memory state and to examine and visualize program state using well-known graph algorithms.

  So far, the main use of memory graphs is their use in isolating cause-effect chains, as above. Other applications include visual exploration and state invariants expressed as graph properties.

• Got offers for full professorships from Mannheim University (June 2002; declined), University of Zurich (December 2002; declined), and Hannover University (January 2003; declined).

Assistant Professor (Wiss. Assistent C1) at University of Passau, Bavaria, Germany (1999 to 2001)

• Extended Delta Debugging to isolate general failure-inducing circumstances such as failure-inducing input, failure-inducing statements, or failure-inducing schedules. Got research and patent grants.

  Delta debugging can fully automate fault localization, the most difficult part of debugging. Its potential will keep me very busy in the years to come...

• Developed Praktomat, a Web-based system for organizing programming courses. Praktomat automatically checks and tests submitted programs and lets students review each other's solutions.

  Praktomat was an enormous success in the students' view: 57.7% agreed that testing raised the quality of their programs (another 28.8% agreed partially); 63.5% confirmed that reviewing raised the quality of their programs (another 19.2% partially). On a scale from 1 (outstanding) to 6 (poor), the overall course got an average rating of 1.96.

• Wrote a book on Programming Tools that demonstrates software engineering principles on selected programming tools.

  Students love this book: It not only discusses the practical usage, but also shows the software engineering concepts and techniques behind daily programming tools.

Assistant Professor (Wiss. Assistent C1) at Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany (1997 to 1999)

• Developed Delta Debugging, an automated technique to isolate the change that causes a specific software failure. Basically, delta debugging answers the question ``Yesterday, my program worked. Today, it does not. Why?''

  Delta debugging brings together my previous work on configuration management and debugging; this combination promises several exciting research themes. Contact me for any details.

• Conceptualized and taught courses in Design Patterns (seminar, 1997), Software Tools (lecture, 1997 and 1998), and Software Engineering (lecture, 1997/98, 1998/99, and 1999/2000).

  These lectures have been evaluated by the students. on a scale from 1 (outstanding) to 6 (poor), the average for Software Tools was 2.03; for Software Engineering, 2.26. Best categories were the presentation as well as the quality of the lecture notes.

Research Assistant (Wiss. Mitarbeiter) at Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany (1991 to 1997)

• Developed the version set model, unifying the variety of software versioning concepts in one single versioning model, using feature logic as formal foundation.

  This was the first work that provided a unified formal base for software versioning concepts. It was presented on the major software engineering conferences as well as in the ACM transactions on software engineering. The resulting Ph.D. thesis won the Ernst Denert Award for the best German software engineering thesis in 1997.

• Conceptualized, co-authored and maintained the GNU Data Display Debugger (DDD), a tool that visualizes the data structures of your program while it is executing.

  With more than 250,000 users, DDD is one of the most successful pieces of ``academic'' software ever written. All major information technology suppliers use DDD for software development; the list goes from Adobe and Compaq to Thomson and Xerox.

• Held courses in Introduction to Programming (first-grade lecture, 1996/1997); Configuration Management (two one-day tutorials, 1996); Introduction to C++ (four one-week tutorials, 1992-1995); Software Engineering (exercises, 1992-1995); Functional Programming (exercise, 1991).

  In the student's evaluation, Introduction to Programming got an average grade of 2.21; the best category was the presentation style.

Ph.D. in Computer Science (Dr.-Ing.) at Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany (1991 to 1997)

• Ph.D. thesis: Configuration Management with Version Sets - A Unified Software Versioning Model and its Applications. Graduated summa cum laude in April, 1997.
• Research and development in deductive software configuration management and visual debugging.

Computer Science Diploma (Dipl.-Inform.) at Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany (1984 to 1991)

• Diploma thesis: VSE - a Visual Structure Editor. Grade: 1.2 (passed with distinction) in June, 1991.

• Fluent in German, French, and English. Passive knowledge of Italian and Spanish.

• Here's my full list of publications.
• For downloads, see my portal in the ACM digital library.

2006 and later

• ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) - Associate Editor.
• ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE-16, 2008) - PC member.
• ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA 2008) - PC chair.
• 17th International Conference on Compiler Construction (CC 2008) - PC member.
• International Workshop on Principles of Software Evolution (IWPSE 2007) - PC member.
• Fourth International Workshop on Mining Software Repositories (MSR 2007) - PC member.
• Workshop on Dynamic Analysis (WODA 2007) - PC chair (with Alex Orso).
• Deutsche Software Engineering-Konferenz (SE 2007) - PC member.
• Workshop Software Engineering im Unterricht der Hochschulen (SEUH 2007) - PC chair (with Marcus Deininger).
• 15th International Conference on Compiler Construction (CC 2006) - PC chair (with Alan Mycroft)
• ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE-14, 2006) - PC member
• ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA 2006) - PC member.
• Deutsche Software Engineering-Konferenz (SE 2006) - PC member
• Reviewer for various ACM journals and IEEE journals.

2004-2005

• Joint European Software Engineering Conference (ESEC-10) and ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE-13, 2005) - PC member
• ACM SIGPLAN-SIGSOFT Workshop on Program Analysis for Software Tools and Engineering (PASTE 2005) - PC member
• 6th International Symposium on Automated and Analysis-Driven Debugging (AADEBUG 2005) - PC member
• Workshop on the Evaluation of Software Defect Detection Tools (BUGS 2005) - PC member
• Deutsche Software Engineering-Konferenz (SE 2005) - PC member
• Third International Workshop on Dynamic Analysis (WODA 2005) - PC member
• Second International Workshop on Mining Software Repositories (MSR 2005) - PC member
• International Conference on Compiler Construction (CC 2005) - PC member.
• Workshop Software Engineering im Unterricht der Hochschulen (SEUH 2005) - PC member.
• International Workshop on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation (SCAM 2004) - PC member.
• International Workshop on Principles of Software Evolution (IWPSE 2004) - PC member.
• ACM SIGPLAN-SIGSOFT Workshop on Program Analysis for Software Tools and Engineering (PASTE 2004) - PC chair (with Cormac Flanagan).
• ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA 2004) - PC member.
• MSR 2004: International Workshop on Mining Source Repositories - PC member.
• Tenth International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems (TACAS 2004) - PC member.
• ACM/IEEE 26th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2004) - PC member.
• Reviewer for various ACM journals and IEEE journals.

2003 and earlier

• Joint meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE 2003) - PC member.
• ACM Symposium on Software Visualization - PC member.
• Eleventh International Workshop on Software Configuration Management (SCM-11) - PC member.
• Tenth International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (SIGSOFT/FSE 2002) - PC member.
• Tenth International Workshop on Software Configuration Management (SCM-10) - PC member.
• Evaluating Expert for the European Union IST programme.
• Reviewer for various ACM journals and IEEE journals.

Scientific Organizations

• Member-at-large of the ACM SIGSOFT Executive Committee.
• Member of the ACM, GI, and IEEE Computer Society.

• US$ 27,000 from the IBM Eclipse Innovation Award Program for isolating Cause-effect chains in the Eclipse development framework, January 2005.
• US$ 17,000 from the IBM Eclipse Innovation Award Program for integrating Software evolution analysis into the Eclipse development framework, January 2004.
• € 220,000 from the DFG for basic research, project Ze 509/1-1 "Evolution Patterns", 2003.
• US$ 27,500 from the IBM Eclipse Innovation Award Program for integrating Delta Debugging into the Eclipse development framework, January 2003.
• € 110,000 from the DFG for basic research, project SN 11/8-1 "Delta Debugging", February 2001.
• € 100,000 from the BayernPatent initiative for an international patent on an automated debugging method, February 2001.
• € 36,000 from the Virtual University Bavaria, Projekt "Java Online Lab" in cooperation with Würzburg University, February 2001.

• Software Development Magazine 2006 Jolt Productivity Award for Why Programs Fail — "a book that 'jolted' the industry and made the task of creating software faster, easier, and more efficient", March 2006.
• ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award for Isolating Cause-Effect Chains from Computer Programs, November 2002.
• Ernst Denert Software Engineering Award 1997 for Germany's best PhD thesis in Software Engineering — "an outstanding work in the area of software development methods, tools, and procedures".