Bio (circa 2025)

Short

Sebastian Elbaum is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia where he co-leads the Lab for Engineering Safe Software (LESS Lab). He aims to build safe autonomous systems. He is the recipient of an NSF Career Award, an IBM Innovation Award, a Google Faculty Research Award, Amazon Scholar, an FSE Test of Time Award, five ACM SigSoft Distinguished Paper Awards, and multiple best paper awards. He regularly serves in program committees at the top software engineering and robotic conferences, and has served as Program Co-Chair for ISSTA, ESEM, and ICSE, and as Steering Committee Chair for ICSE. He is also an Adjunct Senior Fellow for Emerging Computing Technologies at the Council on Foreign Relations connecting autonomous systems and AI with policy in national security. He is an ACM Fellow and an IEEE Fellow.

Long

I am a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Virginia, and I am one of the founders of the Laboratory for Engineering Safe Software (LESS Lab). My research aims to build dependable systems through domain-specific analysis techniques. My teaching focuses on instilling cost-effective software development principles.

I was recognized as a Fellow by the IEEE for my contributions to testing evolving systems and a Fellow by the ACM for my contributions to the analysis and testing of evolving systems and robotic systems.

I am the recipient of an NSF Career Award, an IBM Innovation Award, a Google Faculty Research Award, an FSE Test of Time Award 2018, several ACM SigSoft Distinguished Paper Awards (FSE2006, ICSE2008, ICSE2012, ISSTA2013, ICSE2016), several best paper and distinguished artifacts awards (ESEM2011, IROS2016, ISSTA2017, ISSTA2020), mostly for empirically studying program analysis and software testing challenges, and developing automated techniques for addressing them. My current development and analysis work is focused on safe autonomous systems.

I served as Program Co-Chair of the 2015 International Conference on Software Engineering, Program Chair for the 2007 International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis, Program Co-Chair for the 2008 Empirical Software Engineering Symposium, Co-Editor for the Information and Software Technology Journal, and as Associate Editor of the ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodologies Journal. I was the Steering Committee Chair for ICSE from 2015-2019.

I am a member of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) of the Computer Research Association (CRA) from 2024-Present.

I am also an Adjunct Senior Fellow for Emerging Computing Technologies at the Council on Foreign Relations connecting autonomy and AI with policy in national security.

I received my Ph.D. from the University of Idaho, and a Systems Engineering degree from Universidad Catolica de Cordoba, Argentina. I spent a significant part of my academic career at the University of Nebraska, where I co-founded two international recognized labs, the E2 Software Engineering Lab and the Nimbus Robotics Lab. I have spent my sabbaticals as a research scientist or research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (DC, USA), Google (Mountain View, USA), CNR (Pisa, Italy), and UCL (London, UK).