Wahab Hamou-Lhadj
PhD (Ottawa U.), PEng. (OIQ), SMIEEE
OMG-Certified Expert in UML
OMG-Certified Expert in BPM

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Highlight: I am currently on sabbatical leave, dividing my time between Ericsson Global AI Accelerator (GAIA) and NASA JPL, California Institute of Technology (CalTech).

Call For Papers: IEEE Software Special Issue on Observability and Explainability for Software Systems Decision Making

I am a Professor of Computer and Software Engineering in the Department of ECE at Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science, Concordia University.

I lead The Software Observability Research and Technology Lab (SRT Lab), which focuses on the application of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to harness the wealth of information in operational data (logs, traces, metrics) that is generated from software-intensive systems. The goal is to develop better observability and monitoring techniques to support software development and operations, software reliability, AI for IT Operations (AIOps), anomaly detection and cybersurveillance of information systems, and operational intelligence.

I also have a keen interest in model-driven engineering with applications to software systems and business process management. I was heavily involved in the development of OMG-Certified UML Professional and OMG-Certified Expert in BPM certification programs.

I teach undergraduate and graduate courses on software engineering, programming methodologies, product design using Scrum, software modelling, and AIOps. Prior to joining Concordia, in addition to software courses, I also taught MBA courses on information systems, business process management, and enterprise architectures (TOGAF).

Affiliations

Conference Organization (2023)

Recent Publications

Projects:

  • D2K+: Deep Learning of System Crash and Failure Reports for DevOps, Ericsson Global AI Accelerator, MITACS
  • Log Analytics for Operational Intelligence, Ubisoft, MITACS
  • CLEVER Project: Mining Code Commits for Enhanced Software Quality, Ubisoft, NSERC
  • Advancing Logging Practices in Software Engineering, NSERC
  • D2K-From Data To Knowledge for Better System Maintenance, Ericsson, MITACS
  • OpenSim: An Open Architecture for Aircraft Simulation Integration and Monitoring Methods Using the HLA Standard, Marinvent, NSERC
  • Tools and Infrastructure for OpenSim, Marinvent, CRIAQ, Aero-Connect, NSERC
  • Advanced Host-level Surveillance, DRDC, NSERC
  • Integrated Anomaly Detection Models and Techniques, DRDC, NSERC
  • Improving Software Maintenance through Advanced Trace Abstraction Techniques, NSERC
  • Kernel Tracing Techniques for Anomaly Detection in the Context of Redundancy and Diversity, DRDC, NSERC
  • Program Comprehension through Dynamic Analysis, NSERC
  • The Analysis of Execution Traces for Program Comprehension, FQRNT
  • Online Surveillance of Critical Computer Systems through Advanced Host-based Detection, Ericsson, DRDC, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, University of Toronto, ETS
  • Cyber Surveillance of Information Systems, DRDC
  • AVIO 508-Diagnostics for Real Time Distributed Multi-core Architecture in Avionics, CAE, OPAL-RT, NSERC, CRIAQ, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal
  • Tracing and Monitoring Tools for Distributed Multi-Core Systems, Ericsson, DRDC, NSERC, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, University of Ottawa
  • Building a Linux Kernel-Based Attack Taxonomy, DRDC


Services

Featured Tool

Download ULP (Universal Log Parser), a tool that uses ML to extract structures from any unstructured log files to facilitate log analytics tasks including AIOps.

Media

LATEST NEWS

May 2023. I joined the following conferences as a program committee member: ISSRE'23, ACM RACS'23, AIOps@ICDM'23
April 2023. Here are the slides of my invited talk at NASA JPL, Caltech, on the topic of "On the Relationship Between AIOps and Systems Engineering."
March 2023. Our new paper in ICPC'23 "Towards a Classification of Log Parsing Errors".
March 2023. I am co-organizing the IEEE Software Special Issue on Observability and Explainability for Software Systems Decision Making.
February 2023. Our TSE paper "Open Science in Software Engineering: A Study on Deep Learning-Based Vulnerability Detection" was accepted for presentation at ICSE 2023.
January 2023. I joined the following conferences as a program committee member: ICSME'23, ICPC'23, AIOps@ICSE'23, SAM'23 (with MODELS 2023)
November 2022. I am pleased to announce that I joined NASA JPL, CalTech as an affiliate/visiting researcher as part of my sabbatical leave.
September 2022. Our new paper in TSE: "Open Science in Software Engineering: A Study on Deep Learning-Based Vulnerability Detection,"
August 2022. Our new paper in JSS: "Locating and Categorizing Inefficient Communication Patterns in HPC Systems Using Software Tracing,"
July 2022. Our new paper in Automated Software Engineering Journal: "HealMA: a model-driven framework for automatic generation of IoT-based Android health monitoring applications,"
June 2022. Our paper in ICSME'22: "An Effective Approach for Parsing Large Log Files"
June 2022. Congratulations to Sauradip Ghosh for defending successfully his Master's thesis on the topic of "System and Application Performance Analysis Patterns Using Software Tracing"
May 2022. I joined IEEE Transactions on Reliability as an Associate Editor.
April 2022. Congratulations to Ameneh Kazemi for successfully defending her Master's thesis on the topic of "A Lightweight Anomaly Detection Approach in Large Logs Using Generalizable Automata".
March 2022. Master's student Komal Panchal joins Morgan Stanley as a Senior Software Developer. Congratulations!.
March 2022. Congratulations to Komal Panchal for successfully defending her Master's thesis on An Empirical Study of Runtime Files Attached to Crash Reports".
March 2022. Our recent paper in EMSE journal: "The Sense of Logging in the Linux Kernel".
March 2022. Our recent paper in ICPC 2022: "Performance Anomaly Detection through Sequence Alignment of System-Level Traces".
January 2022. Our paper entitled ClusterCommit: Towards a Just-in-Time Defect Prediction Approach Using Clusters of Projects" was accepted at SANER 2022 Conference.
November 2021. Our paper on "Locating and Categorizing Inefficient Communication Patterns in HPC Systems Using Software Tracing" is accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Reliability.
October 2021. Our lab welcomes PhD student Rambod Pakrooh and MSc. student Heba Aburish.
October 2021. Keynote presentation of Dr. Hamou-Lhadj on Software Observability at WIDCOME 2021.
August 2021. Keynote presentation of Dr. Hamou-Lhadj on Data Analytics for Software System Observability at IEEE IRI 2021
April 2021. Congratulations to Rui Zhou for his new position at CGI as a Consultant and Full-stack Java Developer.
March 2021. Congratulation to Md Shariful Islam for successfully defending his PhD thesis. The thesis can be downloaded here.
February 2021. I am pleased to welcome a new PhD student, Issam Sedki. Issam, who is co-supervised by Dr. O. Ait-Mohamed will work on using deep learning techniques to the analysis of large logs. Welcome aboard!
January 2021. I am pleased to announce that our paper "EnHMM: On the Use of Ensemble HMMs and Stack Traces to Predict the Reassignment of Bug Report Fields," is accepted in SANER 2021.
January 2021. New ASE journal paper: "ALBA: a model-driven framework for the automatic generation of Android location-based apps"
January 2021. New SoSym paper: "MUPPIT: A Method for Using Proper Patterns in Model Transformations"
December 2020. See video of our paper titled "An analysis of the use of CVEs by IoT malware" presented at the 13th International Symposium on Foundations & Practice of Security (FPS 2020). This work is in collaboration with Professors R. Khoury and S. Halle from UQAC.

October 2020. See video of our paper on "Automatic Prediction of the Severity of Bugs Using Crash Traces" presented at ICSME 2020. Read full paper.

August 2020. Congratulations to my student Rui Zhou for successfully defending his Master's thesis on the topic of "A Study on Data Leakage Caused by Poor Logging Practices". See his talk based on the thesis at SANER 2020:
June 2020. I am glad to join the technical PC of ICSE'21 Software Engineering in Practice Track.
May 2020. SRT Lab welcomes three new students Taranpreet, Komal, and Sauradip. Welcome aboard!
May 2020. My lab is renamed Software Research and Technology Lab (SRT Lab) to reflect the evolution of my research over the years.
March 2020. Our paper on "A study of run-time behavioral evolution of benign versus malicious apps in Android," is now published in Elsevier Journal of Information and Software Technology (IST).
February 2020. Our paper on "A Systematic Literature Review on Automated Log Abstraction Techniques" is now published in Elsevier Journal of Information and Software Technology (IST). Congrats to the team.
February 2020. Dr. Hamou-Lhadj gave an invited talk on "An Industrial Case Study on Predicting and Detecting Faulty Programs Using ML" at FETCH'20 .
January 2020. Dr. Hamou-Lhadj received new funding from Ericsson Global AI Accelerator to develop techniques and tools based on deep learning methods and run-time data (logs and traces) to manage system crash and failure reports with the objective of improving the productivity of Ericsson DevOps analysts.

January 2020. Congratulations to PhD student Kobra (Ava) Khanmohammad for defending successfully her PhD thesis on "Leveraging the use of API call traces for mobile security".

October 2019. Dr. Hamou-Lhadj gave an invited talk at ISCLP, one of the largest seminars of the Aerospace Industry in France. Dr. Hamou-Lhadj talked about CommitAssistant: A tool for improving software quality using machine learning/AI and its applications to the Aero industry.

October 2019. Our paper on "Automatic Prediction of the Severity of Bugs Using Stack Traces and Categorical Features" is accepted for publication in the Elsevier Journal of Information and Software Technoogy (IST). Congratulations to the team.
September 2019. Congratulations to Korosh Sabor for successfully defending his PhD thesis on the topic of "Automatic Bug Triaging Techniques Using Machine Learning and Stack Traces".

September 2019. Our paper "Model execution tracing: a systematic survey" received SoSym 2019 Best Paper Award. The paper was presented at MODELS 2019.
September 2019. Congratulations to Neda Ebrahimi for successfully defending her PhD thesis on "Machine Learning and Deep Learning Techniques for the Detection of Duplicate Bug Reports with Stack Traces".
July 2019. Our paper on "Empirical Study of Android Repackaged Applications," published in the Springer Journal on Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE), is now available online.
June 2019. Our paper on "Lossless Compaction of Model Execution Traces" is now published in the International Journal on Software and Systems Modeling (SoSyM). Congratulations to the entire team.
May 2019. If you are attending CSER (Consortium of Software Engineering Research) to be held on May 22-23 in Montreal, don't miss our talk on "Combining SE and AI to increase the autonomy and adaptability of resilient systems"!
May 2019. Dr. Hamou-Lhadj gave a talk at the ACFAS 87e Congress-AI and Cybersecurity Track, the largest multidisciplinary gathering of scientists in the French-speaking world, on the use of deep learning to detect anomalies in software traces with applications to cybersecurity. See full agenda.

May 2019. Dr. Hamou-Lhadj in the news:

May 2019. Our paper "An HMM-Based Approach for Automatic Detection and Classification of Duplicate Bug Reports," accepted for publication in the Elsevier Journal of Information and Software Technology (IST), is now available online. Congratulations to the whole team!
March 2019. Dr. Hamou-Lhadj is invited to give a talk at UQAM on the use of machine learning to predict software faults at commit-time (as programmers write code), a project in collaboration with Ubisoft. The talk will be on April 10.
March 2019. Dr. Hamou-Lhadj joins ACFAS (Association francophone pour le savoir), the principal French-language science and technology society in Canada for promoting research and innovation as well as scientific culture in the French-speaking world.
February 2019. Clever-Commit, a tool based on Commit-Assistant (also known as CLEVER) that was developed in my research lab in collaboration with Ubisoft, is now being used by Mozilla in the development of Firefox. Read more. Commit-Assistant uses AI to detect and prevent insertion of defects as programmers write code. Read full paper.
February 2019. Congratulations to PhD candidates, Neda Ebrahimi and Islam Shariful, for joining Samsung AI and Productions TMV as Data Scientists while finishing up the writing of their theses, hence doubling the success! Well done.
February 2019. Our paper on "Model execution tracing: a systematic mapping study" is now published in the proceedings of SoSym.
January 2019. Dr. Hamou-Lhadj's project on combining machine (deep) learning models and a BDI framework for enhanced anomaly detection in collaboration with Dr. Ingrid Nunes from UFRGS , Brazil won the Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program (ELAP) Competition. PhD student Joao Faccin is the recipient of the awarded scholarship. Congratulations to Joao!
November 2018. Dr. Hamou-lhadj was invited to participate in the "Colloque du scientifique en chef en collaboration avec Ubisoft La Forge -Entreprise, université, société : la synergie des savoirs," organized by Fonds de Recherche du Quebec (FQR) and Ubisoft.
November 2018. Our paper on "Exploiting Parts-of-Speech for effective automated requirements traceability," is now published in Elsevier Journal of Information & Software Technology (IST).
November 2018. Students Mathieu Nayrolles (PhD) and Sama Khosravifar (MASc) at the fall graduation ceremony.
October 2018. Dr. Hamou-Lhadj gave a keynote panelist talk on "From Debugging to Repair: A Look at the Practice of Logging," at ISSRE's International Workshop on Debugging and Repair (IDEAR'18), Memphis, TN, USA.
October 2018. Congratulations to Sama Khosravifar for defending successfully her Master's thesis. Sama's work is on designing trace-based anomaly detection techniques using multi-agent systems.
September 2018. PhD student Mathieu Nayrolles featured in a Concordia STEM SIGHT article.
August 2018. Our project with Ubisoft featured on the screens of the metro of Montreal:
August 2018. Congratulations to postdoc Dr. Fabio Petrillo for his new position as an Associate Professor at l'Universite du Quebec.

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Contact Us

Electrical and Computer Engineering
1515 Ste-Catherine St. W.
Montreal, Quebec, H3G 2W1
Office: EV 5.213
wahab dot hamou-lhadj at concordia dot ca
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