Hello, I am Anjana Perera

Postdoctoral Researcher (PhD) Intelligent Application Security Group Oracle Labs, Brisbane, Australia

What's New

December 2022

Postdoctoral Researcher at Oracle Labs

I will be joining the Intelligent Application Security team at Oracle Labs, Brisbane as a postdoctoral researcher.

October 2022

PhD Graduate

Using Defect Prediction to Improve the Bug Detection Capability of Search-Based Software Testing

I graduated with a PhD, specialised in Software Engineering, from the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University.

Supervisors: Aldeida Aleti, Burak Turhan and Marcel Böhme

Thesis is available here

23rd of September 2020

Presenting our paper at ASE 2020 - Research Papers - Testing (1) Session

Defect Prediction Guided Search-Based Software Testing

Authors: Anjana Perera, Aldeida Aleti, Marcel Böhme and Burak Turhan

I'll be presenting our paper on Sep. 23, 2020 at ASE 2020 (Virtual Event) conference.

Program details can be found here

22nd of September 2020

Lightning talk at ASE 2020 - LBR + DS Poster (1) Session

Using Defect Prediction to Improve the Bug Detection Capability of Search-Based Software Testing

I'll be presenting my doctoral symposium paper (poster presentation) on Sep. 22, 2020 at ASE 2020 (Virtual Event) conference.

Program details can be found here

Research Projects

September 2018 - October 2022

Using Defect Prediction to Improve the Bug Detection Capability of Search-Based Software Testing (PhD Thesis)

In recent years, system failures caused by bugs in software have led to several catastrophic incidents resulting in huge financial losses and fatalities. These incidents highlighted the importance of software testing as a crucial step in the software development process in improving software quality. Automated test generators, such as search-based software testing (SBST) techniques, replace the tedious and expensive task of manually writing test cases, thereby reducing the total cost of the software development and time to deliver the high quality software products to the market.
SBST techniques are effective at generating tests with high code coverage. But, is high code coverage sufficient to maximise the number of bugs found? In this research, we develop novel approaches to improve the bug detection capability of SBST through leveraging software defect prediction.

Publications

July 2020 - December 2020

Emergency Department Wait Time Prediction (Part-time Research Fellow)

Funding - The Australian government via the Medical Research Futures Fund

Emergency Departments (EDs) undertake 1 in 10 medical consultations in Australia. Waits to see a doctor are highly variable and can cause significant frustration. Waits vary from one facility to another, from day to day and within a day with little or no visibility regarding wait time to consumers. Some Victorian EDs now use ED electronic information to predict wait times for patients.
Transparent wait time information is likely to significantly improve patient experience of emergency care, improve ambulance workload distribution (by diverting appropriate patients to less busy facilities), offload time performance (and therefore response time) and emergency staff experience.
In this project, we identify the most accurate model for predicting ED wait times that is validated with retrospective data based on existing health services data, and then to optimise the model based on its performance during prospective evaluation on real-time ED data. We investigate the potential bias in the data and fairness of the ED wait time prediction software against individual patients and groups of patients in order to ensure ethical use of technology.

Publications

Publications

Thesis

Using Defect Prediction to Improve the Bug Detection Capability of Search-Based Software Testing

Anjana Perera
Monash University, 2022

Thesis (Open Access)  
TSE 2022

An Experimental Assessment of Using Theoretical Defect Predictors to Guide Search-Based Software Testing

Anjana Perera, Aldeida Aleti, Burak Turhan and Marcel Böhme
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), 2022

Pre-print   Prototype   Artefacts
EMSE 2022

Search-Based Fairness Testing for Regression-Based Machine Learning Systems

Anjana Perera, Aldeida Aleti, Chakkrit Tantithamthavorn, Jirayus Jiarpakdee, Burak Turhan, Lisa Kuhn and Katie Walker
Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE), 2022

Article (Open Access)   Tool
ASE 2020

Defect Prediction Guided Search-Based Software Testing

Anjana Perera, Aldeida Aleti, Marcel Böhme and Burak Turhan
The 35th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE'20), 2020, 13 pages

Pre-print   Tool
ASE 2020

Using Defect Prediction to Improve the Bug Detection Capability of Search-Based Software Testing

Anjana Perera
The 35th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE'20), 2020, 5 pages

Pre-print  

Service to the Profession

Peer Reviewer

Peer reviewed manuscript(s) of ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM)

Program Committee Member

Served as a program committee member in the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE) 2021 and 2022 Artefact Evaluation Tracks

Program Committee Member

Served as a program committee member in the International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME) 2021 and 2022 Joint Artefact Evaluation Track and ROSE Festival

Virtualisation and Web Chair

Served as the virtualisation and web chair in the 9th International Workshop on Realizing Artificial Intelligence Synergies in Software Engineering (RAISE) 2021 (co-located with the Automated Software Engineering 2021 conference)

Program Committee Member

Served as a program committee member in the 12th Symposium on Search-Based Software Engineering (SSBSE) 2020

Peer Reviewer

Peer reviewed manuscript(s) of Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE)

Peer Reviewer

Peer reviewed manuscript(s) of Journal of Systems and Software (JSS)

Peer Reviewer

Peer reviewed manuscript(s) of International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST) 2022

Student Volunteer

Serving as a student volunteer in the 36th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE) 2021

Supervision

2022

Supervised an undergraduate software engineering research project

  • Defect prediction guided test suite reduction for search-based software testing
2021

Co-supervised two undergraduate software engineering research projects

  1. Fairness testing of AI-based systems
  2. Addressing overfitting in automated program repair

Teaching

2021

FIT2099: Object Oriented Design and Implementation

Teaching Associate

This unit introduces students to object-oriented design principles and their application to the construction of quality software. Students will learn the fundamental concepts that underlie modern object-oriented languages, and will learn how to implement their designs using at least one. Students will also learn how to use standard notation to illustrate their designs.

2020 & 2021

FIT3077: Software Engineering: Architecture and Design

Teaching Associate

This unit builds on introductory units to analysis and design. It provides the professional software engineer with advanced knowledge and skills in high-level architectural design, its theoretical foundations, industrial best practice, and relevant application context.

2019

FIT2107: Software Quality and Testing

Teaching Associate

This unit focuses on quality assurance issues and techniques in software development projects. It defines software quality and introduces a number of quality assurance measures, including human review and inspection of code and non-code artefacts, as well as execution-based testing.

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About Me

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher in Automated Software Development at Oracle Labs, Australia. I work to make life easier for humans who are involved in the software development process by automating labour intensive, error-prone and monotonous tasks like test case generation, fault localisation and program repair etc.

I have recently joined the Intelligent Application Security team at Oracle Labs, Brisbane as a postdoctoral researcher. I graduated with a PhD, specialised in software engineering, from the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University in October 2022. My PhD research was in the area of search-based software testing and software defect prediction. I was advised by A. Prof. Aldeida Aleti, Dr. Marcel Böhme, and Prof. Burak Turhan. Prior to starting my PhD in 2018, I worked as a Software Engineer at LSEG Technology, Sri Lanka for 1.5 years. During my time at LSEG Technology, I was mainly involved in developing a latency critical, highly scalable and reliable electronic exchange for London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). There I gained valuable hands-on experience of practices and various tools and techniques used in the industry and their limitations. I aim to leverage this experience in my research to address these challenges, so that the outcomes of my research can actually help the people in the industry.

I also hold a BSc. (Hons) of Engineering Degree, specialised in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, from University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka (2013 - 2017). I also did a 6 month internship at Etisalat Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, Sri Lanka in 2015/2016 working as a Trainee Telecommunication Engineer.

Get In Touch

#Social

My Contact Details

  • Email anjana DOT perera AT oracle DOT com
  • Address Oracle Labs
    Level 16, 340 Adelaide Street
    Brisbane City QLD 4000
    Australia