(opens in new tab)Today, research in software engineering encompasses a wide range of computer science and engineering disciplines. These include systems and networking technologies, hardware design, programming languages, security, and privacy, to name a few. Microsoft Research actively engages with researchers across these disciplines to advance the state of the art in software engineering applications and tools. The areas of mobile and cloud computing are of particular recent interest, and are where some of the most exciting and innovative work is being done. Today smartphones and cloud services, are being used in complex scenarios pushing the envelope of what software can do. The design of such scenarios introduces challenges unique to this new paradigm.
The Microsoft Research Software Engineering Innovation Foundation (SEIF), a forum for collaboration among software engineers worldwide, presents its annual awards to promote these efforts. The SEIF awards provide seed funding to innovative research in software engineering, recognizing projects that aim to advance the state of art in software engineering.
Now in its third year, SEIF is pleased to announce the winners of the SEIF 2012 request for proposals. This year, the awards have focused on the application of software engineering to mobile and cloud computing.
As in past years, SEIF winners are spread across the world—with projects as diverse as their backgrounds. For instance, Harald Gall (opens in new tab) of the University of Zurich plans to create a collaborative tool that uses Microsoft Team Foundation Server (opens in new tab) to assess software quality. Mayur Naik (opens in new tab) of Georgia Tech plans to develop an automated test-generation methodology for mobile apps, doing so by advancing a program analysis technique called dynamic symbolic execution while making heavy use of the Microsoft Z3 (opens in new tab) automated theorem prover. Arno Puder (opens in new tab) from San Francisco State University intends to develop a toolkit called XMLVM (opens in new tab), which can cross-compile a commercially available Android application to Windows Phone 7. Unusually, we have two awards going to the same institution this year. Alexey Gotsman (opens in new tab) from IMDEA in Spain will be working on a project to specify and validate memory models for Windows Phone. Mark Marron (opens in new tab), also at IMDEA, Spain, will be working on finding and fixing memory usage problems.
Microsoft Research Podcast
Collaborators: Renewable energy storage with Bichlien Nguyen and David Kwabi
Dr. Bichlien Nguyen and Dr. David Kwabi explore their work in flow batteries and how machine learning can help more effectively search the vast organic chemistry space to identify compounds with properties just right for storing waterpower and other renewables.
These are just a sample of the innovative software engineering projects recognized by this year’s awards. You can read more about them and the rest of the SEIF winners on the SEIF website (opens in new tab).
Congratulations to the 2012 winners!
—Arjmand Samuel (opens in new tab), Senior Research Program Manager, and Judith Bishop (opens in new tab), Director of Computer Science, Microsoft Research Connections
Learn More