Research

Research Area

My research interests are in the area of Software Engineering. In particular, I am working on the question how to engineer trustworthy AI-based solutions that help humanity to survive without compromising individual freedom. Currently, I am heading the department „Data Science“ at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE), Kaiseslautern, Germany.

My department focuses on how to identify, design, develop, and deploy secure solutions based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Our research focuses on solution trustworthiness and supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals in application areas with specific functional security requirements.

My previous role was that of a technical project manager. I led several large projects in the area of embedded software and systems engineering.

I am active in the International Software Engineering Research Network (cf. ISERN) and the German Gesellschaft für Informatik (c.f. https://fg-data-science.gi.de/)

I have been involed in several projects funded by German Ministries and the European Commission, among them: 

  • European FP5 (ESERNET),
  • European FP6 (EMERGE, VIDE, ReDSeeDS),
  • European FP7 (OASIS, AALIANCE, MUNDUS)
  • H2020 (Q-Rapids)
  • ITEA (GreenCode)
  • BMBF (SPES2020, CREST, ADIWA, ProDebt, DeepQuali, GreenCode)
  • BMG (Saturn)
  • BEML – FNR (KIWI)

Membership in Research Groups

  • Representative of Fraunhofer IESE in the International Software Engineering Research Network (ISERN) and life-time member of the ISERN Steering committee
  • Member 2015-2016 of the Steering committee of the international Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)
  • elected Member 2017-2028 of the Steering committee of the international Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)
  • Chair of the Steering committee of the international Conference on Product Focused Process Improvement (PROFES)
  • Member of the German Computer Society (Gesellschaft für Informatik, GI) in the groups „Software Engineering (Softwaretechnik)“ and „Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially in the ABIS: Adaptivität und Benutzermodellierung in interaktiven Softwaresystemen Fachgruppe (FG) 1.1.4 und 2.3.3, and Data Science and Measurement (FG 2.1.10)
  • Chair of the steering committee of special interest group „Data Science and Measurement“ at the German Gesellschaft für Informatik (2022-today)

Activities as an Editor

  • Editor for the several Workshop and conference Proceedings in the area of Software Engineering (see Puplications)

Activities as a Reviewer

  • For several workshops in the area of Software Engineering (WSESE, WS SENE, MORSE) and Adaptive Systems (ABIS)International Conference on Human Computer Interaction (HCI2003)
  • PC Member of International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering (ISESE 2004, ISESE 2005, ISESE 2006)
  • International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE 2005)
  • Poster Chair for the International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM2007)
  • International Conference on Quality of Information and Communications Technology (QUATIC 2007)
  • International Conference on Product Focused Process Improvement (PROFES) 2005-today
  • International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM) 2007-today
  • IEEE/ACM 39th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice (ICSE-SEIP) 2017
  • IEEE/ACM 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Results (ICSE-NIER) 2021
  • IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice (ICSE-SEIP) 2024
  • Journal „Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE)“
  • Journal „Information Science and Technology (IST)“
  • Journal „Transactions in SOftware Engineering (TSE)“
  • Journal „Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodologyin SOftware Engineering (TOSEM)“
  • Journal „IEEE Access“
  • Reviewer on behalf of the EU for ICT 30 2015: Internet of Things and Platforms for Connected Smart Objects

Research Activities

  • Co-Chair International Workshop International Workshop on Methodological Issues with Empirical Studies in Software Engineering (WSESE2025) an ICSE Workshop 2025, Ottawa, Canada
  • ISERN 2024: Session Chair: Empirical Studies in AI-driven Software Engineering (AI4SE)
  • Co-Chair International Workshop International Workshop on Methodological Issues with Empirical Studies in Software Engineering (WSESE2024) an ICSE Workshop 2024, Lisboa, Portugal
  • General Co-Chair PROFES, 2023 Dornbirn (Österreich)
  • Workshop Chair Young Scientists and early-stage research in Data Science Workshop 2023 (YSDS-23) im Rahmen der Informatik 2023, Berlin 2023
  • Program Co-Chair PROFES, 2021 Turin (Italy)
  • Program Co-Chair PROFES, 2020 Turin (Italy)
  • Co-Chair International Workshop on Conducting Empirical Studies in Industry and 6th International Workshop on Software Engineering Research and Industrial Practice, CESSER-IP 2019 and ICSE Workshop, 2019 Montreal, Canada
  • Co-Chair International Workshop on Conducting Empirical Studies in Industry (CESI 2017) an ICSE Workshop, 2017 Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • CESI 2016@ICSE: Co-Organizer, an ICSE Workshop, 2016, Austin, Texas, USA
  • ESEM 2016: Program Co-Chair
  • Dagstuhl-Seminar 16162 „Managing Technical Debt in Software Engineering“ – Participant
  • PROFES 2014: Program Co-Chair
  • PROFES 2013: General Chair
  • PROFES 2012: Program Co-Chair
  • ISERN 2012: Session Chair: What are the currently known best practices in SE?
  • ISERN 2011: Session Chair: System Evaluation
  • IASESE 2011: Chair: Empirically-based Decision Making
  • ISERN 2010: Session Chair: Issues with studies in industry
  • IDoESE 2010: Member of the Doctoral Committee
  • ISERN 2009: Programme Co-Chair
  • ISERN 2008: Programme Co-Chair
  • PROFES 2008: Program Co-Chair
  • ESEM 2008: Financial Chair
  • ESEM 2007: Chair of the session on systematic reviews.
  • ISERN 2007: Chair of the Session on „Experience Factory“
  • PROFES 2007: Session Chair
  • WSESE 2007: Workshop Chair
  • ISESE 2006: Session Chair
  • ISERN 2006: Chair of the Sessions „Experience Factory“ and „Decision Support“
  • Dagstuhl Seminar 06262 „Empirical Software Engineering“ – Participant
  • WS SENE: Workshop Chair
  • PROFES 2006: Session Chair
  • WSESE 2006: Workshop Chair
  • FGML 2005: Chair of the Workshop of the special interest group „ABIS“ at the LWA-05 Learning, Knowledgde Discovery and Adaptivity
  • ISESE 2005: Session Chair and presentation of a paper
  • ISERN 2005: participant
  • PROFES 2005: Session Chair and presentation of a paper
  • WSESE 2005: Workshop Chair
  • SOQUA 2004: First International Workshop on Software Quality in conjunction with the Net.ObjectDays 2004
  • ISESE 2004: Session Chair and presentation of a paper
  • ISERN 2004: participant
  • SEKE 2004: Session Chair and presentation of a paper
  • SEDECS 2004: presentation of a paper
  • FGML 2004: Workshop of the special interest group „ABIS“ at the GI-Workshopweek „Lernen – Lehren – Wissen – Adaptivität“ (LLWA)
  • ISESE 2003: presentation of a paper
  • WSESE 2003: Workshop Chair
  • ISERN 2003: participant
  • WSESE 2002: Proceedings Co-Chair
  • AH 2002:
  • FGML 2002: Workshop of the special interest group „ABIS“ at the GI-Workshopweek „Lernen – Lehren – Wissen – Adaptivität“ (LLWA)
  • UM 2001:
  • FGML 2001: Workshop of the special interest group „ABIS“ at the GI-Workshopweek „Lernen – Lehren – Wissen – Adaptivität“ (LLWA)

Teaching Activities

  • Empirical Model Building and Methods at the University of Kaiserslautern 2012-2019
  • Empirical Software Engineering – several Guest lectures at University Politecnico Madrid in 2014, 2015, 2016
  • Software Engineering Lecture at the University for Applied Sciences in Worms 2004-2005
  • Software Engineering Lecture at the Berufsakademie Mannheim 1999-2001
  • Empirical Model Building and Methods at the RPTU Kaiserslatuern 2012-2019

Reserch Projects (selected ones with public funding)

  • KI Wald (2023-2025) FNR – We will explore heterogeneous data sources and their potential for applying AI techniques to help forest owners to strategically rebuild their forest taking into account climate change and local conditions.
  • DeepQuali (2023-2025) BMBF KI4KMU – We investigate, whether AI techniques such as deep learning can be used to perform code-level quality assessment without the need for static code analysis knowledge.
  • Saturn (BMG) https://www.saturn-projekt.de/ (2022-2025) – We investigate how machine learning and rule-based approaches can be used (integrated) to inform physicians whether a patient’s data is indicative of a rare disease.
  • DEMETER (H2020) https://h2020-demeter.eu/ (2019-2023) – This project was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no. 857202. I was the principal investigator for Fraunhofer IESE. Our tasks were related to the conceptualization of a data quality assessment as a service component and the support of field trials from a data science perspective in two different scenarios.
  • QRapids (H2020) https://www.q-rapids.eu/ (2017-2019) Quality-aware rapid software development – This project was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, under grant agreement number 732253. I was the principal investigator for Fraunhofer IESE. Our responsibilities were related to quality modeling, data engineering and analysis pipeline (from acquisition to analysis), prediction of quality problems, what-if analysis and empirical evaluation.
  • ProDebt (BmBF), I was the lead researcher for Fraunhofer IESE. Our responsibilities were related to quality modeling, data pipeline, prediction of technical debt and evaluation.
  • MANTIS (ECSEL-JU2014/H2020), I was responsible for two use cases on predictive maintenance. We applied the Fraunhofer IESE Potential Analysis to derive business cases for the industrial partners. Based on these, we developed data-driven solutions for predicting failures. In one case, we also improved the data collection process and provided information (from our solution) to prevent early failures.
  • ARAMiS (BmBF), I was responsible for the empirical evaluation.
  • SPES-XT (BmBF), I was responsible for the overall empirical evaluation strategy. Furthermore, we investigated different aspects of agile development and its scaling.
  • MUNDUS (EU FP7), I worked on object tracking and motion estimation based on computer vision approaches and their evaluation in a realistic context.
  • TACTICS (EU FP7), I worked on a data-driven capability management system for urban attack response units. We implemented several ethical tools to support decision makers in identifying in real time the most appropriate and available means to prevent attacks.
  • ROSETTA (AAL-169), I was responsible for the research and development of a data-driven early detection system aimed at identifying critical situations in the lives of elderly people suffering from dementia. Critical situations include falls and immobility. For the latter, we developed a more sophisticated version based on expected events and time series. The system was trained on the individual for two weeks before we put it into operation.
  • ADIWA (BMBF), I conducted an empirical study to investigate a production process (in a future factory) regarding its efficiency in batch and continuous mode. Furthermore, I empirically investigated the technical feasibility of a predictive maintenance approach in IoT (Future Factory). We took data from the energy consumption of the production line and changed (in a controlled mode) drilling equipment (new vs. different stages of the old) to investigate if the difference can be detected and when it makes sense to replace the equipment.
  • OASIS (EU FP7), I supported the field trials from an empirical perspective.
  • EMERGE (EU FP6) (Emergency Monitoring and Prevention): The main objective of the project is to unobtrusively detect emergency situations in homes, especially of elderly people. The aim is to make elderly people feel better and thus enable them to stay in their own environment longer. Therefore, we implemented a data-driven approach to monitor activities of daily living and a first version to detect immobility.
  • VIDE (EU FP6) (Visualize all Model-Driven Software Development): The EU-funded research project „VIDE“ deals with the visual development of software at the model level (i.e. Model-Driven Software Development, MDSD). The goal is to support the composition of platform-independent models via action languages. In addition, quality defects in these models, such as antipatterns or architectural smells, which have a negative impact on a quality aspect such as maintainability, are diagnosed in order to support the modeler. (Duration: 7/2006-12/2008)
  • ReDSeeDS (EU FP6) (Requirements Driven Software Development System): The main objective of the project is to create an open framework consisting of a scenario-driven development method (precise specification language and process for the „how-to“), a repository for reuse and tool support throughout. The basic reuse approach will be case-based, where a reusable case is a complete set of closely linked (by mappings or transformations) software development technical artifacts (models and code), leading from the initial user needs to the resulting executable application. A new problem description in the form of a requirements model can be mapped to previous requirements models. The solution information (models and code) of the most similar problem can then be taken for reuse and adapted to even partially developed requirements. In contrast to other approaches, this framework minimizes the effort involved in preparing reusable solutions.
  • IST-EC2 (EU FP5) (European-Canadian collaboration): IST-EC 2 is a joint Canada-Europe project aimed at bringing together the European and Canadian research communities in key areas of Information Society Technologies (IST). It will build on the success of the original IST-EC project, which ended in May 2004, by facilitating cooperative participation in comparable Canadian and European IST research and technology development (RTD) programs. Under the project, Canadian and European research and technology developers from both the public and private sectors (universities, research centres or SMEs) can search for joint projects in which they can participate on the basis of mutual benefit. They are responsible for securing funding within their own organizations or from other sources available in their respective countries.
  • ESERNET (Empirical Software Engineering Network): The EU-funded thematic network project aimed at collecting and producing evidence about the value of software engineering methods and techniques such as inspections, component-based development, and others.