Sven Apel
Sven Apel, Prof. Dr.
Professor of Computer Science
Chair of Software Engineering
Director of the Saarbrücken Graduate School of Computer Science
Saarland Informatics Campus
Saarland University
Coordinates
Saarland University
Chair of Software Engineering
Building E1.1, Room 2.11Phone: +49 681 302 57211
66123 Saarbrücken, GermanyE-Mail:
Curriculum vitae, short bio, DBLP, Google Scholar, ACM, ORCiD, Bluesky
Research

A key vision driving my research is to empower software engineering practice to enter an era of intensive automation. I develop and evaluate methods, tools, and theories for the construction and analysis of efficient, reliable, maintainable, and configurable software systems. In this endeavor, I pay special attention to the human factor and interdisciplinary research questions. In particular, I am interested in:

Software variability and configuration
AI-based program generation and optimization
Socio-technical software analysis
Empirical and neurophysiological methods

I apply my research results routinely to real-world software systems and projects from various domains, both from the open-source realm or in collaborations with partners from industry, such as Siemens AG, Bosch Engineering, and Airbus Helicopters.

Awards & Honors
ERC Advanced Grant “Brains On Code”
ASE Fellow
ACM Distinguished Member
for Outstanding Scientific Contributions to Computing
Hugo Junkers Award for Research and Innovation,
awarded by the State of Saxony-Anhalt
Appointment to the Young Academy of Europe (5 years)
Heisenberg Professorship of the German Research Foundation
Emmy-Noether Fellowship of the German Research Foundation
Award of the University of Magdeburg and the Karin-Witte Foundation
for the Best Doctoral Dissertation 2007
Software-Engineering Award of the Ernst-Denert Foundation
for the Best Doctoral Dissertation 2007
Award of the School of Computer Science, University of Magdeburg
for Outstanding Scientific Achievements 2006
Most Influential Paper Awards @ SPLC'19, ICPC'22, GPCE'23
ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Awards @ ICSE'15, ICSE'21
Best Paper Awards @ SPLC'11, Modularity'15, Academy of Management'18
Distinguished Reviewer Awards @ ASE'18, ICSE'24, FSE'24
ERC Advanced Grant
Grants & Projects
Brains On Code (ERC Advanced Grant, 2 500 000 Euro, 2022–2027)
CPEC (DFG, TRR 248, Principal Investigator, Projects C2 & E3, 2022–2026)
Congruence (DFG, 620 000 Euro, 2020–2024)
Pervolution (DFG, 520 000 Euro, 2017–2024)
ExaStencils (DFG, SPP 1648, 510 000 Euro, 2013–2018)
SafeSPL++ (DFG, Heisenberg Program, 660 000 Euro, 2013–2018)
Pythia (DFG, SPP 1593, 700 000 Euro, 2012–2017)
FeatureOpt (FFG, 100 000 Euro, 2015–2018)
SafeSPL (DFG, Emmy-Noether Program, 1 300 000 Euro, 2010–2015)
MapReduceFoundation (DFG, 160 000 Euro, 2011–2013)
FeatureFoundation (DFG, 320 000 Euro, 2009–2013)
Service
(complete list)
Program Committees:
ASE'25 (Area Chair), FSE'24, ICSE'24
Selected Publications
(complete list)

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Teaching & Students
Current, past, and future semesters
Advised Ph.D., Bachelor, Master, and Diploma theses
Pearls
Are You Trapped in the Configuration Abyss? Interview @ IEEE Software
My keynote on Brains On Code at FASE'23 is available on YouTube!
My keynote at ICPE'21 is online available!
My talk at the Joint Lecture Series of Saarland Informatics Campus is available at YouTube.
My keynote at QAVS 2020 is available at YouTube.
I am among the 49 ACM Distinguished Members that were recognized in 2018 by the Association for Computing Machinery for contributions that have revolutionized how we live, work, and play.
Times Higher Education features our research on double-blind reviewing (see also the original article in Communications of the ACM).
Network Science Offers New Perspective on Developer Roles in Open Source Software
@ IEEE Software blog.
My keynote at MODULARITY 2016 is available at YouTube.
Co.LABS Article: This Is Your Brain On Code, According To Functional MRI Imaging
Huffington Post Article: Chris Parnin summarizes our fMRI research: Scientists Begin Looking at Programmers' Brains: The Neuroscience of Programming. See also the discussion thread at Slashdot.
Tech Talk on Variability-Aware Analysis at GPCE'12
Interview on FOSD at Software Engineering Radio: Part 1 and Part 2
 
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