Software complexity is a challenging concept. The goal is to come up with a metric that can be computed in a scalable manner, and that enables us to predict a property of the software. If we want to predict the difficulty of symbolically executing or randomly testing software, what complexity metrics can we use? I will discuss two concepts called path complexity and branch selectivity as potential metrics for software complexity within this context.

Tevfik Bultan is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). His research interests are in software verification, program analysis, software engineering, and computer security. He co-chaired the program committees of the 9th International Symposium on Automated Technology for Verification and Analysis (ATVA 2011), the 20th International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE 2012), the 28th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2013), and the 41st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2019). He was the general chair of the 2017 ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA 2017). He served as the chair (2019-2023) and vice chair (2005-2009) of the Department of Computer Science at UCSB.

Tevfik Bultan is the recipient of a NATO Science Fellowship from the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), a Regents’ Junior Faculty Fellowship from the University of California, Santa Barbara, a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation, two ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Awards, a Best Paper Award from International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE), and the UCSB Academic Senate Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award. He was recognized as an ACM Distinguished Scientist in 2016.

Tevfik Bultan is a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). His research interests are in software verification, program analysis, software engineering, and computer security. He has more than 100 refereed research publications and has served on more than 50 technical program committees of international conferences and workshops. He co-chaired the program committees of the 9th International Symposium on Automated Technology for Verification and Analysis (ATVA 2011), the 20th International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE 2012) which is the flagship conference of ACM SIGSOFT, the 28th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2013) and the 41st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2019) which is the premier software engineering conference in the world. He was the general chair of the 2017 ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA 2017). He was an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions of Software Engineering (TSE) from 2014 to 2018 and he is currently an associate editor of the ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM). He is currently serving on the steering committees of ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA), IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE), and ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE). He has served as the vice chair of the Department of Computer Science at UCSB from 2005 to 2009.

Tevfik Bultan was a keynote speaker at the 19th International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2008), the 6th ACM-IEEE International Conference on Formal Methods and Models for Codesign (MEMOCODE 2008), the 9th International Symposium on Formal Aspects of Component Software (FACS 2012), the 2013 IFIP Joint International Conference on Formal Techniques for Distributed Systems (33rd FORTE / 15th FMOODS), and the 14th International Symposium on Automated Technology for Verification and Analysis (ATVA 2016). He received a NATO Science Fellowship from the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) in 1993, a Regents’ Junior Faculty Fellowship from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1999, a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation in 2000, the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award and the Best Paper Award at the 20th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2005), the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award at the 29th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2014), and the UCSB Academic Senate Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award in 2016. He was recognized as an ACM Distinguished Scientist in 2016.