Dwyer earns international software engineering honor

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A UNL professor of computer science and engineering has been honored for co-authoring a paper judged by his field as the most influential over the last decade.

The International Conference on Software Engineering recently recognized Matthew Dwyer for his contributions to "Bandera: Extracting Finite-state Models from Java Source Code." The paper is available for download at http://go.unl.edu/bandera.

The award, given annually, recognizes the paper that has the most influence on the theory or practice of software engineering during the 10 years since its original publication.

"Bandera" has been cited more than 950 times since it was published in 2000.

The paper proposes a method for converting software into a mathematical model that allows for precise analysis aimed at finding bugs. It's significant because if such software errors go undetected -- for example, in the case of software used to control airplanes - a catastrophe could result.

The paper's six other co-authors from Kansas State University and the University of Hawaii also were honored at the recent conference, which gathered researchers, practitioners and educators from around the globe.

Dwyer's primary research area is in software dependability.

His latest project is a collaboration with UNL computer engineer Mehmet Can Vuran and Sebastian Elbaum, a professor of computer science and engineering. They are investigating how to use their work analyzing software to provide detailed information about sandhill and whooping crane behavior during their yearly migrations.

- Jean Ortiz Jones, University Communications