Bio

I’m a senior lecturer (assoc. prof. in Northern American system) at the University of Canterbury in the Computer Science and Software Engineering department (Aotearoa New Zealand). I’m also a member and Industry Liaison officer for Software Innovation NZ, a network of academics in computer science and software engineering.

I graduated with a Master Degree in Computer Science at the University of Namur (Belgium) in 2005. I spent a couple of years in the industry as a software developer, working for a consulting company. I then worked as a teaching assistant, doing my PhD studies part-time and graduated in 2015. I spent three years as a post-doctoral researcher and assistant lecturer at the University of Namur working on an interdisciplinary project that lead to the WebDeb platform, an education tool for public debates and argumentation. I then have been appointed lecturer at the University of Canterbury in 2017. I serve as regular reviewer in international journals (e.g., Information Systems, Information and Software Technology, Computers in Industry) and international workshops and conferences (e.g., ECSA, ICSA).

Research

My research aims at bridging machine learning and natural language processing techniques on the one hand and agile software development practices on the other hand. My current projects include approaches to generate models from user stories (i.e. natural language descriptions), extract design decisions from chat-based communication and improve the management of software quality assurance (i.e. testing and code metrics in a DevOps context). I’m also active into enhancing the teaching and learning of software and model-driven engineering (including software language engineering) through evidence-based teaching.

My prior work focused on model transformations and how to trace requirements back into software architecture models for which a set of domain specific languages were implemented into the Eclipse EMF ecosystem.

Industry

On top of a prior experience within the consulting industry, I’m the final year projects coordinator at the department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, so I’m also in contact with many industries, both Christchurch-based and New Zealand-wide. These capstone projects support companies with time-bound research projects involving final year software engineering students where they can explore innovative solutions and develop proof-of-concepts influencing their next software products or enhance their business value.