Computer Science and Engineering Ph.D. candidate John-Paul Ore has recently accepted a position as an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at NC State University.
Ore will defend his dissertation, “Dimensional Analysis for Robot Software Without Developer Annotations,” in August. Ore was advised by Rosowski Associate Professor Carrick Detweiler as well as former professor Sebastian Elbaum.
Ore earned his master’s degree from CSE in 2014, and received CSE’s Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award that year. His thesis focused on aerial water sampling research conducted in the NIMBUS Lab. Ore was highly active in both the NIMBUS and ESQuaReD Labs throughout his time in the department.
“John-Paul's work melds software engineering and robotics, bringing together two distinct fields,” Detweiler said. “His career is off to a great start and it is clear that he will continue to make significant impacts on software engineering and robotics.”
Pursuing two graduate degrees in the field of computing and contributing to groundbreaking research was at all what Ore had planned for his career.
“When I finished my undergraduate degree, I promised myself I would never go back to school, but coming back to graduate school has been the best thing that I promised myself I would never do,” Ore said.
Ore began studying at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2011. After earning his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and then working in various professional programming roles, Ore returned to school to supplement his self-taught skills with a formal computing education.
“I realized there was a limit to what I could accomplish without a strong theoretical background,” Ore said. “I came back to school to match the other people in the field. I wanted some theory, but had no intention of getting a Ph.D.”
Ore’s Ph.D. dissertation and research focuses on software analysis, specifically software that analyzes other software.
“When I first visited UNL and thought about the department, Matt Dwyer pulled me aside and said that software that analyzes other software is the so-called ‘ring of power’ in a ‘Lord of the Rings’ sense,” Ore said. “It’s the power that rules all the other powers.”
Ore will be teaching undergraduate and graduate program analysis courses at NC State. He’ll also be teaching courses in software engineering, software testing, and possibly compilers.
Ore said he appreciated the mentorship he’s received in the department during his time here, especially the faculty’s enthusiasm for extending research beyond the lab and classroom.
“I love the professors here, and I love how approachable they are. Every professor I’ve taken a class from liked talking about their research, and they were interested in connecting the ideas that were taught in class to cutting-edge research topics,” Ore said. “They also allowed me to use class projects in a way where I could research for the class and also use that research to get conference or journal publications.”
Ore said what may be even more valuable to him than his mentors’ academic support was their inclusive attitude and ability to build relationships with students and colleagues.
“I will take with me the importance of treating people well and engaging teams in a way that allows everybody to participate…things that are not necessarily on the syllabus but are communicated through interactions and have to do with expressing values,” Ore said.
Ore is looking forward to beginning his career at NC State in August, and says he is eternally grateful for his time at Nebraska.
“I owe both the department and state of Nebraska a debt of gratitude that I do not feel I can repay adequately,” Ore said.