Catia Trubiani is now an associate professor at the Gran Sasso Science Institute, Italy. Her research includes software performance, software reliability, software architectures, and model-based software testing. Recently, she has applied her research to federated learning, cyber-physical, and multi-agent systems.
Here is what Catia had to say about their work and the future of performance engineering:
Could you briefly summarize the core contribution of your paper and what you are most proud of regarding its impact?
The awarded paper presents a methodology for analysing software systems, capturing the root causes of performance problems, and applying solutions to improve performance. The novelty lies in a tool-based approach that automatically detects and solves software performance antipatterns: upon detecting an antipattern, the tool provides feedback to designers, i.e., architectural alternatives to overcome specific performance problems. I am proud of its long-term impact, since it was written when both Anne Koziolek and I were PhD students; there were no “big names” on the author list, but we still gained significant visibility among other researchers.
Looking back after ten years, did the impact or evolution of the work surprise you in any way? Is there anything you would approach differently if you were to do the work today?
The impact surprised me; I did not expect to receive such a prestigious award. If I were at the stage of doing the work today, I would approach it differently, since many other approaches have been defined in the meantime, and it is important to ensure novelty.
In your opinion, what emerging trends will dominate the field over the next few years?
Emerging trends in performance engineering will centre on the adoption of artificial intelligence and ethics; specifically, agents will learn software performance characteristics and interact to make “intelligent” decisions that do not violate humans’ opinions.
What is your top advice for junior researchers submitting to ICPE 2027?
Work on what you like; impact will be decided as a matter of time, it is out of your control. This would also be the message that I would send back to myself when writing this paper and that I am currently teaching to PhD students.
What is one ICPE memory that has stayed with you?
The award ceremony at ICPE 2011 is one of my best memories from ICPE. The conference was in Karlsruhe, Germany, and we had an overnight celebration party.