Tulane University · School of Science & Engineering

Designing software the world can depend on

The Laboratory for Software Design brings modular reasoning to programming languages, software at scale, and AI-enabled systems, so the software the world relies on can be built, verified, and trusted.

What we work on

One principle, three thrusts

A single idea runs through our work: modular reasoning, the ability to understand and change one part of a system without grappling with the whole.

Modular reasoning

Modularity and Modular Reasoning

Languages, interfaces, and contracts that let engineers reason about complex software one module at a time.

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Software at scale

Software at Scale, with Boa

Boa expresses software-analysis tasks modularly so they run across the world's open-source code.

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Dependable AI

Modular and Dependable AI

Decomposing learned models into modules and bringing software-engineering rigor to AI-enabled systems.

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Explore our research in depth →

Selected Papers

IRepair: An Intent-Aware Approach to Repair Data-Driven Errors in Large Language Models

FSE '25

µPRL: A Mutation Testing Pipeline for Deep Reinforcement Learning based on Real Faults

ICSE '25

An LLM-Based Agent-Oriented Approach for Automated Code Design Issue Localization

ICSE '25

Mock Deep Testing: Toward Separate Development of Data and Models for Deep Learning

ICSE '25

Leveraging Data Characteristics for Bug Localization in Deep Learning Programs

TOSEM '24

Inferring Data Preconditions from Deep Learning Models for Trustworthy Prediction in Deployment

ICSE '24

Fairify: Fairness Verification of Neural Networks

ICSE '23

Decomposing a Recurrent Neural Network into Modules for Enabling Reusability and Replacement

ICSE '23

Towards Understanding Fairness and its Composition in Ensemble Machine Learning

ICSE '23

23 Shades of Self-Admitted Technical Debt: An Empirical Study on Machine Learning Software

ESEC-FSE '22

The Art and Practice of Data Science Pipelines: A Comprehensive Study of Data Science Pipelines In Theory, In-The-Small, and In-The-Large

ICSE '22

Decomposing Convolutional Neural Networks into Reusable and Replaceable Modules

ICSE '22

DeepDiagnosis: Automatically Diagnosing Faults and Recommending Actionable Fixes in Deep Learning Programs

ICSE '22

Manas: Mining Software Repositories to Assist AutoML

ICSE '22

Fair Preprocessing: Towards Understanding Compositional Fairness of Data Transformers in Machine Learning Pipeline

ESEC-FSE '21

On Decomposing a Deep Neural Network into Modules

ESEC-FSE '20

Do the Machine Learning Models on a Crowd Sourced Platform Exhibit Bias? An Empirical Study on Model Fairness

ESEC-FSE '20

Repairing Deep Neural Networks Fix Patterns and Challenges

ICSE '20

BCFA Bespoke Control Flow Analysis for CFA at Scale

ICSE '20

A Comprehensive Study on Deep Learning Bug Characteristics

ESEC-FSE '19

News

We Are Hiring a Postdoctoral Fellow

June 16, 2026

Postdoctoral Fellow Position Open The Laboratory for Software Design is hiring one or more postdoctoral fellows in the Department of Computer Science at Tulane University,...

Links: Apply on Tulane's career site
NSF Funds Our Work on Fault Localization for Deep Learning

June 02, 2026

I am delighted to share that the National Science Foundation has funded a new collaborative project that Mohammad Wardat and I will pursue together. Mohammad...

Dr. Sayma Sultana has joined the Laboratory of Software Design at Tulane University as a Postdoctoral Fellow.

September 12, 2025

Dr. Sayma Sultana She earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Wayne State University under the supervision of Dr. Amiangshu Bosu. Her research focuses on...

Three Lab Members Presented at ICSE 2025

April 27, 2025

Three members of our lab presented their work at ICSE’25 in Ottawa, Canada: Deepak-George Thomas presented his paper titled “µPRL: A Mutation Testing Pipeline for...

Sayem Imtiaz defends Ph.D. thesis

October 11, 2024

Sayem Imtiaz has successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled “Modularity-inspired Techniques for Patching the Weak Components in Deep Learning”. His research focused on addressing data-driven...

Links: Event Link
Congratulations to Dr. Shibbir Ahmed, Now Faculty at Texas State!

August 22, 2024

It is a privilege to celebrate another former student stepping into a faculty role. Shibbir Ahmed, who completed his PhD with our group at Iowa...

Congratulations to Dr. Sumon Biswas, Now Faculty at Case Western Reserve!

August 15, 2024

One of the deepest joys of academic life is watching the people you mentor grow into colleagues and leaders in their own right. This season...

Moving to Tulane as the Dean of the School of Science and Engineering

July 01, 2024

After 19 amazing years at Iowa State University Dept. of Computer Science,I will be moving to Tulane University as the next Dean of the School...

Links: Papers
Prof. Hridesh Rajan named new dean of Tulane University School of Science and Engineering.

June 03, 2024

Hridesh Rajan, Kingland professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science at Iowa State University, has been named the new dean of Tulane University’s...

Laboratory for Software Design Recruiting a Postdoctoral Fellow

April 02, 2024

The Department of Computer Science in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University seeks outstanding applicants for a postdoctoral position in...

Links: Projects