
Registered user since Tue 12 May 2015
Thomas Zimmermann is a Chancellor’s Professor and Bren Chair at the University of California, Irvine. He works on cutting-edge research and innovation in software engineering, machine learning, artificial intelligence, data science, and digital games. He has over 15 years of experience in the field, with more than 100 publications that have been cited over 30,000 times. His research mission is to empower software developers and organizations to build better software and services with AI. He is best known for his pioneering work on systematic mining of software repositories and his empirical studies of software development in industry. He has contributed to several Microsoft products and tools, such as Visual Studio, GitHub, and Xbox. He is an ACM Fellow, an IEEE Fellow, and recipient of the IEEE TCSE Edward J. McCluskey Technical Achievement award.
He received his PhD in 2008 from Saarland University in Germany. From 2007 to 2008 he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary and from 2008 to 2024 he worked at Microsoft Research as a Sr. Principal Researcher.
Contributions
2026
2025
AIware
Internetware
ICSE
- Author of Beyond the Comfort Zone: Emerging Solutions to Overcome Challenges in Integrating LLMs into Software Products within the SE In Practice (SEIP)-track
- Author of Time Warp: The Gap Between Developers’ Ideal vs Actual Workweeks in an AI-Driven Era within the SE In Practice (SEIP)-track
- Author of Code Today, Deadline Tomorrow: Procrastination Among Software Developers within the Research Track-track
- Program Co-Chair of ICSE 2026 Program Committee Meeting within the Meetings and BOFs-track
- Author of Enhancing Differential Testing: LLM-Powered Automation in Release Engineering within the SE In Practice (SEIP)-track
- Committee Member in Research Track within the Research Track-track
Mining Software Repositories
CAIN
2024
MODELS
Internetware
ESEC/FSE
- Keynote Speaker of The Incredible Machine: Developer Productivity and the Impact of AI on Productivity within the Plenary Events-track
- Author of Can GPT-4 Replicate Empirical Software Engineering Research? within the Posters-track
- Session Chair of SIGSOFT Townhall Session (part of Social Events)
- Author of Can GPT-4 Replicate Empirical Software Engineering Research? within the Research Papers-track
AIware
2023
Internetware
ICSE
- Author of Correlating Automated and Human Evaluation of Code Documentation Generation Quality within the Journal-First Papers-track
- Author of Recommending Root-Cause and Mitigation Steps for Cloud Incidents using Large Language Models within the Technical Track-track
- Author of Make Your Tools Sparkle with Trust: The PICSE Framework for Trust in Software Tools within the SEIP - Software Engineering in Practice-track
- Chair of Awards 1 - TCSE & SIGSOFT Awards within the Social Events-track
- Author of AI and ML: The Software Engineers of the Future within the FoSE - Future of Software Engineering -track
2022
ESEC/FSE
- Session Chair of Opening session + Distinguished paper awards (part of Plenary Events)
- Steering Committee Member in Steering Committee
- Author of Nalanda: A Socio-technical Graph Platform for Building Software Analytics Tools at Enterprise Scale within the Industry Paper-track
- Session Chair of SIGSOFT Town Hall (part of Social)
- Author of Understanding Skills for OSS Communities on GitHub within the Research Papers-track
- Author of Reel Life vs. Real Life: How Software Developers Share Their Daily Life through Vlogs within the ESEC/FSE 2021-track
ICSE
- Author of Towards Mining OSS Skills from GitHub Activity within the NIER - New Ideas and Emerging Results-track
- Author of Towards Mining OSS Skills from GitHub Activity within the Posters-track
- Author of Attracting and Retaining OSS contributors with a Maintainer Dashboard within the SEIS - Software Engineering in Society-track
- Author of Practitioners’ Expectations on Automated Code Comment Generation within the Technical Track-track
- Session Chair of Town Hall (part of All plenary events)
- Author of An Empirical Study of Release Note Production and Usage in Practice within the Journal-First Papers-track
- Author of A Tale of Two Cities: Software Developers Working from Home During the COVID-19 Pandemic within the Journal-First Papers-track
- Committee Member in Program Committee within the Journal-First Papers-track
- Author of What are Weak Links in the npm Supply Chain? within the SEIP - Software Engineering in Practice-track
Mining Software Repositories
CHASE
CAIN
- Program Co-Chair in Organizing Committee
- Program Co-Chair in Program Committee within the CAIN 2022-track
- Session Chair of AI Smells (part of CAIN 2022)
- Session Chair of Welcome to CAIN (part of CAIN 2022)
- Session Chair of Closing and Awards (part of CAIN 2022)
- Session Chair of Keynote Christopher Re (part of CAIN 2022)
2021
ESEC/FSE
- Author of Automating the Removal of Obsolete TODO Comments within the Research Papers-track
- Committee Member in Program Committee within the Research Papers-track
- Committee Member in Steering Committee
- Author of Reel Life vs. Real Life: How Software Developers Share Their Daily Life through Vlogs within the Research Papers-track
ICSE
- Author of Neural Knowledge Extraction From Cloud Service Incidents within the SEIP - Software Engineering in Practice-track
- Circle leader of Mentoring circle led by Thomas Zimmermann within the Social and Networking-track
- Area Chair in Program Committee within the Technical Track-track
- Session Chair of Ceremony (part of Ceremonies)
- Author of “How Was Your Weekend?” Software Development Teams Working From Home During COVID-19 within the Technical Track-track
- Session Chair of Awards Announcement 2 (part of Awards)
- Session Chair of ICSE Keynotes (part of Keynotes)
- Author of Survey Instruments for "How Was Your Weekend?" Software Development Teams Working From Home During COVID-19 within the AE - Artifact Evaluation-track
- Author of Please Turn Your Cameras On: Remote Onboarding of Software Developers during a Pandemic within the SEIP - Software Engineering in Practice-track
- Author of Anomalicious: Automated Detection of Anomalous and Potentially Malicious Commits on GitHub within the SEIP - Software Engineering in Practice-track
- Session Chair of Awards Announcement 3 (part of Awards)
- Author of Leaving My Fingerprints: Motivations and Challenges of Contributing to OSS for Social Good within the Technical Track-track
- Session Chair of Mentoring circle (part of Social and Networking)
2020
ESEC/FSE
- Committee Member in Program Committee within the Test of Time Paper Award-track
- Co-chair in Program Committee within the Research Papers-track
- Session Chair of Keynote (part of Plenary events)
- Moderator of Welcome Panel #2 within the Plenary events-track
- Committee Member in Steering Committee
- Panelist of SIGSOFT Town Hall within the Plenary events-track
- Program Co-Chair in Organizing Committee
ICSE
- Session Chair of Awards Plenary (part of ICSE 2020 Plenary Sessions)
- Author of Enabling Good Work Habits in Software Developers through Reflective Goal-Setting within the Journal First-track
- Author of Moving from Closed to Open Source: Observations from Six Transitioned Projects to GitHub within the Journal First-track
- Committee Member in Program Committee within the Journal First-track
- Author of Ask us about doing empirical research at Microsoft within the ICSE 2020 Ask Me Anything-track
- Program Board in Program Board within the Technical Papers-track
- Author of Towards a theory of software developer job satisfaction and perceived productivity within the Journal First-track
Mining Software Repositories
- Most Influential Paper (MIP) Award Committee Co-chair in Organizing Committee
- Co-chair in Most Influential Paper (MIP) Award
- Author of The State of the ML-universe: 10 Years of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Software Development on GitHub within the Technical Papers-track
- Ordinary PC member in Program Committee within the Technical Papers-track
- PC Member in Registered Reports Committee within the Registered Reports-track
2019
ICSE
Mining Software Repositories
International Conference on Program Comprehension
2018
ESEC/FSE
ICSE
- Committee Member in Program Committee within the NIER - New Ideas and Emerging Results -track
- Author of What makes a great manager of software engineers? within the Journal first papers-track
- Co-located events in Organizing committee
- Author of Data Scientists in Software Teams: State of the Art and Challenges within the Journal first papers-track
- Panelist of Software Engineering in 2030 within the IF - Industry Forum-track
- Committee Member in Program committee within the Technical Papers -track
Mining Software Repositories
Blog Posts
- Automated Software Engineering 2019! Mon 10 Sep 2018