Registered user since Mon 15 May 2017
Sebastiano Panichella is a passionate omputer Science Researcher at the University of Bern (UniBe) and head of the IDeaLS Lab (Intelligent Development and Large-Scale Systems Lab) at the Italian Institute of Artificial Intelligence for Industry (AI4I).
He received the Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Sannio (Department of Engineering) in 2014 defending the thesis entitled ‘‘Supporting Newcomers in Open Source Software Development Projects’’: doi.org/10.1109/ICSM.2015.7332519. For more information have a look at his short CV (https://spanichella.github.io/img/CV.pdf).
His main research goal is to conduct industrial research, involving both industrial and academic collaborations, to sustain the Internet of Things (IoT) vision, where future “smart cities” will be characterized by millions of smart systems and AI-enabled systems (e.g., cyber-physical systems such as drones, and other autonomous and intelligent systems) connected over the internet, composed by AI-components, and/or controlled by complex embedded software implemented for the cloud. Sebastiano Panichella is also deeply interested in interdisciplinary research, where computer science intersects with life sciences. His work bridges software engineering, AI/ML, and domain-specific expertise, creating impactful collaborations beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries.
His research interests are in the domain of Software Engineering (SE), Data Science (DS), Life Engineering (LE), and Cloud computing (CC): DevOps (e.g., Continuous Delivery, Continuous integration), Machine learning applied to SE, Software maintenance and evolution (with particular focus on Cloud, mobile, AI-based, and Cyber-physical applications), Mobile Computing. Moreover, he is promoting DS research on “Summarization Techniques for Code, Changes, and Testing”. He authored or co-authored around one hundred papers appeared in International Conferences and Journals. These research works involved studies with industrial and open projects and received best paper awards or best paper nominations . Moreover, Sebastiano Panichella contributions to the education concern the (i) the book “Roadmap for DevOps in Cyber-physical Systems: Challenges and Future Directions”; and (ii) the chapters of the book “Large Language Models in Cybersecurity and Cyberdefense: Novel Threats and Mitigations Perspectives” (with the chapters “Vulnerabilities Introduced by LLMs through Code Suggestions” and “Enhancing Security Awareness and Education for Large Language Models”). He is supervising, supervised (or co-supervised) 19 undergrad students, 27 MSc students and currently/recently 17 PhD students (6 of them during the postdoctoral experience at the University of Zurich), 1 postdoc, and 10 research assistants. He serves and has served as a program committee member of various international conference (e.g., ICSE, ICST, ISSTA, ASE, FSE, ICSME, etc.). - Dr. Panichella was selected In 2021 as one of the top-20 Most impactful SE researchers Worldwide (results reported by the JSS journal). - According to (the September 2022 data-update from) the article “A standardized citation metrics author database annotated for scientific field” (in the report), a ranking (or selection) of researchers is made (by the Stanford University) and Dr. Panichella appears in the percentile rank of the top 2% or above in the sub-field. Similarly, Dr. Panichella appears in the percentile rank of the top 2% or above in the sub-field for 2023. The same ranking has been made in 2025 in the article "August 2025 data-update for “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators” and also in this updated ranking he appears among the top 2% or above in the sub-field for 2025. - ScholarGPS recognizes Top Scholars for their outstanding performance in various Fields, Disciplines, and Specialties. Dr. Panichella record, the impact of his work, and the quality of his scholarly contributions have placed his in the top 0.5% of all scholars worldwide in 2024 and 2025. He is an Editorial Board Member of Journal of Software: evolution and process (JSEP) and the Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) journal. He is also a distinguished reviewer of the TOSEM (Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology) journal.
Funding achievements: In the last decade, He has demonstrated his ability to receive (competitive) funding (for a total over 3,500,000 CHF) and lead projects as a PI and co-PI, on topics related to AI and Data Science (e.g., Mobile Computing, life sciences, robotics, etc.), Mining Software Repositories, DevOps and MLOps, Human-computer Interactions, Software Maintenance, and Software Development, Evolution, and Testing for Cyber-physical and AI Systems. Specifically, His research was funded in the past by National and International funding organizations. Prominent examples are: - the H2020 project called COSMOS: DevOps for Complex Cyber-physical Systems (since 2021), - https://www.cosmos-devops.org/ - the Swiss National Science Foundation project called SURF-MobileAppsData The goal of the SURF-MobileAppsData (since 2021) - http://www.ifi.uzh.ch/en/seal/research/projects/SURF-MobileData.html - the Innosuisse with the project called “ARIES: Exploiting User Journeys and Testing Automation for Supporting Efficient Energy Service Platforms” (since 2021) - https://spanichella.github.io/projects/aries-devops/index.html His research is currently supported/funded by - the Innosuisse - with an interdisciplinary project that brings together expertise in biopharmaceutical R&D, AI/ML technologies, and software engineering (from 2025-10-01) - see projects - the Hasler Foundation with the project called “Advancing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Reliability and Societal Trust Through Integrated Testing and Formal Verification” (since 2025) - the Swiss National Science Foundation with the project called “SwarmOps: Human-sensing based MLOps for Collaborative Cyber-physical systems” (since 2025) - the Hasler Foundation with the project called “Bridging the Reality Gap in Testing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles” (since 2024) - the Horizon EU (“Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions-funded Doctoral Networks”) with the project called InnoGuard: Hybrid and Generative Intelligence for Trustworthy Autonomous Cyber-Physical Systems (since 2024)
1) Recent Achievements of Sebastiano Panichella: Dr. Panichella has been awarded the Most Influential Paper (MIP) Award at the International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME) 2025 for the paper “How Can I Improve My App? Classifying User Reviews for Software Maintenance and Evolution” (published at ICSME in 2015). Dr. Panichella has been awarded the Most Influential 5-Years Journal Paper on Software Testing for the paper “How developers engage with static analysis tools in different contexts” (published in Empirical Software Engineering journal) by the Best Journal Committee at the ICST Conference in 2025.
According to the [Results reported by the Journal of Systems and Software]
- Dr. Panichella was selected in 2019 as one of the top-20 (second in Switzerland) Most Active Early Stage Researchers Worldwide in SE. - Dr. Panichella was selected In 2021 as one of the top-20 Most impactful SE researchers Worldwide (results reported by the JSS journal) Dr. Panichella was main PI of successfully executed projects funded by H2020 (on DevOps for Complex Cyber-physical Systems -2020-2024, the Innosuisse (on Testing Automation for Supporting Efficient Energy Service Platforms in 2020-2023), the Hasler Foundation (on Bridging the Reality Gap in Testing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (2024-2025). For ongoing and past project please see projects The paper [Sebastiano Panichella, Andrea Di Sorbo, Emitza Guzman, Corrado Aaron Visaggio, Gerardo Canfora, Harald C. Gall: How can I improve my app? Classifying user reviews for software maintenance and evolution. ICSME 2015: 281-290], which originated the idea behind his first (SNF) funded project, is one of the most cited papers of ICMSE 2015 (as reported in Google scholar), with around 600 citations in around 10 years. 2) Research Motto & Research View: - “It does not make sense to try to be one of the most brilliant scientists. It makes much more sense and it is also more fun to try to be one of the most curious and passionate among them”
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“There are no “basic” or “applied” researchers—only research in different states. Like atoms, researchers shift between a ground state of fundamental inquiry and an excited state of real-world application. It’s the context—curiosity, need, or opportunity—that provides the energy for the transition. Through it all, the researcher remains the same.”
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“As researchers, we are not called to count the papers we write; rather, we are called to write papers that count for us.”
Research Motto: “It does not make sense to try to be one of the most brilliant scientists. It makes much more sense and it is also more fun to try to be one of the most curious and passionate among them”
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