Alberto Bacchelli

Biography

I am an associate professor at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

My primary research interest is in software analytics. This field emerges from software engineering and data science and its focus is on developing and applying data science processes and techniques to conduct empirical experiments on complex knowledge-based activities, particularly the development of software, and improve their state of the practice. My goal is understanding and improving complex knowledge- based activities, such as software engineering, with processes, practices, and tools informed by data and actors' needs, and by engaging with other disciplines such as social sciences. I tackle research questions with both qualitative and quantitative research approaches.

I am head of the Zurich Empirical Software Engineering Team (ZEST), conducting data science research on software repositories and code review. I propose solutions to support program comprehension and software evolution. The techniques I use are at the intersection of Software Engineering, Information Retrieval, Natural Language Processing, Data Mining, and Machine Learning.

Prior to University of Zurich, I have been assistant professor in the Software Engineering Research Group (SERG) at TU Delft for four years, where I also obtained tenure. I received my Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Michele Lanza, working in the REVEAL research group, at the Faculty of Informatics, of the University of Lugano.

During my Ph.D. studies, I also spent two summers (2012 and 2013) at Microsoft Research in Redmond, USA, working as an intern under the mentoring of Dr. Christian Bird

I obtained my bachelor and master degrees in computer science from University of Bologna, also studying one year at the Université Libre De Bruxelles during my Master. After obtaining the master degree, I worked in the software industry for one year at Cineca, the largest Italian computing center.