Software Engineering

• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Security and Forensics
• High Performance Computing
• Software Engineering
• Visualization and Computer Graphics
• Main Research Page
• Main Faculty Page

The Software Engineering research focus area addresses fundamental issues for improving the design, construction, maintenance, and use of software products. Current areas of software-engineering research include:

• Software requirements engineering
• Software design
• Software evolution
• Software metrics
• Assurance of software for critical systems
• Software engineering of secure software
• Applications of intelligent systems
• Experimental and empirical software engineering

Center for Computer Security Research

Several software-engineering faculty are affiliated with the Center for Computer Security Research, which conducts research projects in the following areas.

• Computer security
• Information assurance
• Computer forensics

Faculty

• Dr. Edward Allen
• Dr. David A. Dampier
• Dr. Tomasz Haupt
• Dr. Nan Niu
• Dr. Thomas Philip
• Dr. Ray Vaughn

Ongoing Collaborations

• US Army Engineer Research and Development Center
• MSU Institute for Neurocognitive Science and Technology
• MSU Institute for Digital Biology
• MSU Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS)
• MSU Geosystems Research Institute (GRI)

Research Projects

• David A. Dampier, Ray Vaughn, and others
  • Center for Computer Security Research - Projects in the areas of computer security, information assurance and computer forensics are described in the Computer Security and Forensics research focus area.
• Edward B. Allen
  • Measurement of Diagrams Representing Mental Models of Software is a project in collaboration with Dr. Gary Bradshaw (Dept. of Psychology) to discover what characteristics of software diagrams make them more difficult for people to comprehend and manipulate.
  • Application of Ontology Engineering to Software Requirments Engineering is a project which is exploring the application of ontology technology to software requirements engineering for the purpose of facilitating elicitation and verification of requirements.
  • Information Theory-Based Measurement of Consensus for Fusion of Intelligence is a follow-on to to the earlier project regarding information theory-based software metrics. The goal is to measure the degree of consensus between comparable sources of network intrusion data.
  • Information Theory-Based Measurement of the Diversity of IP Traffic Connections is also a follow-on to the earlier project regarding information theory-based software metrics. The goal is improved network-intrusion detection by measuring unusual traffic connections.
  • Model Checking of Protocols for High Performance Computing is a project in collaboration with Dr. Ed Luke and Dr. Ioana Banicescu that will use model checking to verify the correctness of protocols developed by Dr. Banicescu and integrated into Loci software by Dr. Luke.
  • Possibilistic Metrics and Risk Assessment of Enterprise-Level Cybersecurity is a project in collaboration with Dr. Ambareen Siraj at Tennessee Technological University, that will find improved methods for assessing the security posture of enterprise information technology systems.
  • Semantic Traceability of Regulatory Requirements for Secure Software is a project in collaboration with Dr. Nan Niu that will develop more accurate ways to trace regulatory security requirements.
• Tomasz Haupt
  • Research interests - Metacomputing, Web Technologies, Seamless Access to Remote Resources, Security, Web Portals, Distributed Objects and Components, Parallel and Distributed Computing.
  • Leader of the Cooperative Computing research team at MSU CAVS. The mission of CCG is to develop, deploy, and maintain cyberinfrastructure supporting engineering systems of the future. It will provide an integrating platform enabling cooperation of heterogeneous components, seamless flow of data, persistence of information, and intuitive interfaces for controlling the design cycle without the need of the end user for deep understanding of underlying IT technologies.
• Nan Niu
  • Research interests - How the problem-domain and solution-domain concepts are communicated among the stakeholders and traced throughout the software life cycle, software reuse, software modularity, and autonomic computing.
• Thomas Philip
  • Teaching the Science of Design to Undergraduate Software Engineering Majors - This project is finding coherent ways to teach undergraduate software-engineering majors to design software well.