Neil Walkinshaw

Department of Computer Science,

Regent Court,

211 Portobello Street

Sheffield, S1 4DP

My research and teaching focus on software quality assurance. My research has a particular emphasis on “black-box” components - software units that lack documentation and cannot be scrutinised internally. I specialise in applying Machine Learning and other data analysis algorithms to the specific activities of testing, reverse-engineering, and safety-case assessment.

I studied my Ph.D. (2002-2005) at the University of Strathclyde on the use of static analysis to support software inspections. I subsequently spent five years (2005-2010) as a postdoc at the University of Sheffield, working on state machine inference and software testing (an area in which I am still active). This was followed by 8 years as a Lecturer then Senior Lecturer / Associate Professor at the Department of Informatics at the University of Leicester. I took up my current position as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield in 2018.

Current PC and Organisational Duties

PC member for the International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering ISSRE 2024
PC member for Tests and Proofs TAP 2024
Publication Chair for the International Conference on Software Testing ICST 2024

news

Jul 10, 2024

Delighted that our paper “Subjective Logic as a Complementary Tool to Meta-Analysis to Explicitly Address Second-Order Uncertainty in Research Findings: A Case From Infant Studies”, written with Francisco Margoni has been accepted to the Journal of Infant Behaviour and Development.

Apr 8, 2024

Delighted that our paper “Bounding Random Test Set Size with Computational Learning Theory”, written with Michael Foster, José Rojas and Rob Hierons, has been accepted to FSE 2024! In this paper we show how you can place a bound on the number of random tests that it will take to reach test saturation. A draft paper is available here.

Jan 8, 2024

Delighted that our paper “Do maternal haemodynamics have a causal influence on treatment for gestational diabetes?” has been accepted into the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Michael Foster and I did the causal analysis on this, and it was a collaboration with colleagues at Leicester, Bristol, and St. Georges in London.

Dec 6, 2023

Delighted that Michael Foster’s paper (co-authored with myself and Rob Hierons) “Causal Test Adequacy” has been accepted to ICST 2024. See you there!

Nov 28, 2023

A huge congratulations to Andy Clark for successfully passing his Ph.D. viva on the relationship Causal Inference and Metamorphic Testing! His TOSEM paper on the topic can be found here.

Nov 12, 2023

I and my colleague James Law are currently advertising a fully funded Ph.D. opportunity to link testing with Machine Learning. This will be closely aligned with the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), providing a strong industrial foundation for the research. The details on the project and how to apply can be found here. Please contact me with any questions! Deadline is 24th of January, 2024.

Jul 20, 2023

I shall be publication chair for ICST 2024. Hope to see you there!

Jul 10, 2023

Roland Groz will be presenting our paper “Active Inference of Extended Finite State Models of Software Systems” at ICGI! This has been an enjoyable collaboration with Roland, Adenilso Simao, Catherine Oriat, German Vega, and Michael Foster.