About Me:
I am currently a PhD student, advised by
Kevin Sullivan, in the
Department of Computer Science at
the University of Virginia. I am
anticipating my doctoral degree in Computer Science in 2006. I received my
M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Virginia in 2002, and my
B.S. in Computer Science from Xidian
University in 1996, advised by Jiemin Gong. Before I came to
the US in
2000, I worked for North China Institute of Computing Technology, one of
the top computer research institutions in China.
My broad research area is
software engineering, and my specific interests include
formal software design modeling and analysis, software economics,
software evolution and modularity. My primary research goal is to develop
design representations and automated, quantitative analysis techniques
to reason about design structure and related outcomes early in the
development process.
My dissertation research is a
framework aiming at modeling software design and evolution scientifically,
analyzing design properties rigorously, and linking abstract logical
software models with existing engineering modeling and analysis techniques
in other design fields. This framework is composed of a design modeling
technique based on augmented constraint network (ACN),
a formal representation of evolution
within a design space called
the
design automaton (DA),
and a series of analysis techniques. Three major analysis functions are:
1) design impact analysis (DIA)
, an approach to quantitatively analyzing the changeability of a design
represented
using ACN. 2) the automatic
derivation of design structure matrices (DSM),
a design modeling technique widely applied in other engineering areas; 3)
the net option value (NOV) computation, an economic model pricing the value of modularity.
I've implemented a prototype design modeling and analysis tool called
Simon,
named after Herbert A. Simon.
Passed my defense: July 12th, 2006