Expertise
Software engineering, model-driven engineering, safety-critical systems, formal methods, software testing, software requirements, data analytics, open-source, cloud computing, low-code techniques, compilers, aerospace, avionics
Research Clusters
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Associate Chair for Research
Computing and Software
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Director of the McMaster Centre for Software Certification (McSCert)
Computing and Software
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Professor
Computing and Software
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Joseph Ip Distinguished Engineering Professor
Computing and Software
Overview
I joined the Department of Computing and Software in January 2019, as a Professor. I also hold an honorary professorial appointment at the University of York, UK, where I worked (full-time) from 2001-2018. I’m broadly interested in software engineering, with a particular focus on Model-Driven Engineering and low-code approaches to software development. I like automating tasks that are error-prone, repetitive and tedious (I get bored easily). At York I was part of the team that developed the Epsilon model management framework, which is now used widely in industry (for example, at Rolls-Royce, Leonardo, NASA, IBM and many other places). I’ve published extensively (too extensively) on software engineering. I supervise 7 PhD students in York working on a wide variety of topics, especially model management. I supervise 3 PhD students and 2 Masters students at McMaster. I’m actively looking for great students interested in working on modeling, safety, security and software engineering at McMaster. I continue to collaborate with my colleagues and friends in the UK (and indeed, still hold research grants in the UK).
At McMaster, I am affiliated with the Centre for Software Certification and am currently its Director.
I’m a member of three editorial boards: Software and Systems Modeling (a Springer journal), Empirical Software Engineering (a Springer journal), and the Journal of Object Technology (a platinum open-access journal, where I am also Special Section/Theme editor). If you have questions about publishing in these journals, feel free to get in touch.
I chair the steering committee for the STAF series of conferences (running since 2013, I was General Chair in 2014). I am on the steering committees of the ACM/IEEE MoDELS conference series (and was program chair in 2018), the ACM SLE conference series (and was program chair in 2013 and general chair in 2015), and the International Conference on Model Transformation conference series (I was program chair in 2009). I was program co-chair for ECMFA 2020, held in Bergen, Norway, in June 2020. I am also on the steering committee of the Transformation Tools Contest and was a steering committee member for the Software Engineering Methods in Spreadsheets workshop series that ran from 2014-2018.
I tweet too much as @richpaige. I am happy to discuss baseball and bad films any time, but not always at the same time.
2021-present: Joseph Ip Distinguished Engineering Professor, Faculty of Engineering, McMaster University
2021-2025: Honorary Professor, University of York, UK
2020-present: Director, McMaster Centre for Software Certification (McSCert)
2019-present: Professor (full), Department of Computing and Software, McMaster University, Canada
2009-2020: Professor and Chair of Enterprise Systems, Department of Computer Science, University of York, UK
2007-2008: Senior Lecturer in Software Engineering, Department of Computer Science, University of York, UK
2001-2007: Lecturer in Software Engineering, Department of Computer Science, University of York, UK
1997-2001: Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, York University, Canada
1991-1996: numerous teaching assistant positions, focusing on software engineering, compilers, algorithms and data structures
1994-1997: PhD in Computer Science, University of Toronto, Canada
1992-1994: MSc in Computer Science, University of Toronto, Canada
1988-1992: Honours BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics, McMaster University, Canada
I have supervised over 22 PhD students and 72 Masters students, all of whom have gone on to great careers as academics, engineers, software developers, entrepreneurs, inventors, and more. A reasonable facsimile of my academic family tree can be found here.
I have won a number of best paper prizes – including the ACM 2010 and ACM 2017 Distinguished paper prizes at the MoDELS conference, and the ACM 2016 “Ten Year Most Influential Paper” Award, also at MoDELS. I won several prizes for our work on technology substitution arguments in the context of safety standards, published at DASC 2005.
I’m proud of my work as a conference and journal reviewer. I review too much, but it’s a good way to force yourself to find time to read things, and I always learn something. I’ve won prizes as a best reviewer, and have tried to recognize the importance of good reviewing at conferences that I’ve organized.
I have won over $24M CAD in research funding since 1997. Currently, my research is funded by NSERC (via the Discovery Grant, Alliance, and Collaborative Research Grant programs), the Ontario Research Fund (Research Excellence program), and industry.
I take teaching very seriously (and have won teaching prizes). I have used problem-based learning and variants since 1997, and have done flipped classroom teaching since 2009. I’ve published a number of pedagogy-related papers at academic conferences.
I have injured myself in numerous horrific ways, mostly playing baseball. Ask for details.
Please see my DBLP entry (not all workshop papers are listed) and my Google Scholar page, if you care about such things. My University of York Research Database entry may also be a useful reference for academic outputs, including research grants, students supervised, and various other thrilling academic activities.
