Software Engineering at the University of Washington

Software engineering is a diverse area, and the projects and faculty in our department reflect that. In general, we are interested in ensuring that complex software systems exhibit specific properties. Recently, the three properties that we have focused on are: software safety ( Nancy Leveson), which concerns how to guarantee that systems with embedded software cause no harm to human life, the environment, or property; ease of evolution (David Notkin), which concerns reducing the costs and complexity of changing software systems over time; and real-time attributes (Alan Shaw), which concerns understanding and guaranteeing that certain timing constraints are satisfied.

In addition to continuing work on these and related properties, our current work is characterized in two ways. First, we are interested in understanding how properties interact: for instance, how does one (or can one) build safe systems that can be modified easily? Second, what are the problems that arise in the construction of real software systems? We have a history of working on such systems; our group has had interactions with the FAA on TCAS, the collison avoidance system now found on all planes of over 30 passengers, with Microsoft on helping them with an experimental restructuring of their 1.2 million line Excel product, and with local medical device companies who need to demonstrate that their products satisfy both safety and timing requirements.

Faculty, students, etc. interested primarily in software engineering are listed below, but other people in the department dabble in software engineering research and education from time to time.

People

Courses

Various bibliographies

Miscellaneous

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