Doctoral study in Software Engineering

Pursuing a PhD at our University gives you access to a high-calibre research community – you may have the opportunity to publish papers, attend international conferences, and develop your network in academia and industry.

We welcome research proposals in topics relating to our key areas, including:

• Human and Social Aspects of Software Engineering, with emphasis on the people involved in software development processes, including studying ways to improve coordination on software teams, improving comprehension of software programs, and devising novel techniques to help software developers understand what users want from the software.

• Automated Software Engineering, which involves advancing the quality and reliability of software systems through automation, such as automated generation of test inputs and test oracles, automated code generation, and other techniques to improve software verification and maintenance.

• Software Engineering for AI, focusing on applying software engineering principles and practices to improve the development, testing, and reliability of AI and machine learning systems (including large language models), for example, through advanced testing approaches such as metamorphic testing.

• AI for Software Engineering, focusing on best practices in designing and developing software solutions by leveraging AI solutions.

• Software Supply Chain, examining ways to improve existing software supply chains, including automated patch deployment, handling breaking changes, or testing for vulnerabilities.

• Applied AI and Machine Learning, including designing systems for autonomous vehicles, intelligent and automated health care systems, automatic speech recognition for the speech impaired, and speaker identification and verification.
• Parallel and Reconfigurable Computing, including task scheduling for parallel systems, reconfigurable computing with FPGAs, reliability in scheduling, and design of novel scheduling algorithms.

• Software Security, including examining novel approaches for the mitigation of attacks in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), such as medical devices and smart grids.

• Software Engineering education to improve student learning by applying the software engineering process with the latest technologies, including machine learning, virtual reality, augmented reality, and more.

• Software Engineering for Robotics, including improving software tools and processes for robotic drivers and speech systems.

Associate Professor Kelly Blincoe is an expert in the human aspects of software engineering. She is a current Rutherford Discovery Fellow. Her current research topics include software dependencies, software ecosystems, collaborative software development, empirical software engineering, and equity, diversity, and inclusion in engineering and technology. She is part of a team recently awarded an MBIE Research Programme to find, observe, and reduce threats in domestic and global software supply chains (see https://ssc-fort.github.io/).

Kelly is a leader in the International Software Engineering research community. She is a Member-at-Large on the Executive Committee of ACM’s Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT), the Chair of Software Innovation New Zealand, an Associate Editor for the Empirical Software Engineering Journal and the Journal of Systems and Software, and on the Steering Committees for top conferences including the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) and the ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE).

Senior Lecturer Valerio Terragni is an expert in software testing and automation. His current research focuses on advancing software testing and automated software engineering, with topics including automated generation of test inputs and oracles, metamorphic testing, machine learning and large language model testing, program synthesis, and software engineering education. He is part of a team recently awarded an MBIE Research Programme to find, observe, and reduce threats in domestic and global software supply chains (https://ssc-fort.github.io/).

Some of his research projects involve collaboration with industry partners and have received research funding from Meta. He leads the Software Engineering undergraduate degree programme at the University of Auckland. In 2025, he received both the Faculty and University Early-Career Teaching Excellence Awards. He is active in the international software engineering research community, serving as a program committee member and reviewer for top-tier software engineering venues.

More experts in Software Engineering:

• Dr Nasser Giacaman
  
• Dr Reza Shahamiri
• Professor Oliver Sinnen
• Professor Partha Roop
• Professor Bruce MacDonald
• Associate Professor Kevin Wang
• Dr Nitish Patel
• Dr Jesin James
• Professor Catherine Watson

• Breaking Changes and their Effect on Client Projects | Supervised by Associate Professor Kelly Blincoe and Dr Valerio Terragni

• Voice of the users: Mining software requirements from online user feedback | Supervised by Associate Professor Kelly Blincoe and Dr Nasser Giacaman

• Evaluating Synchronous Languages as a Path to Safer Autonomous Driving | Supervised by Professor Partha Roop

• Generating Complex Software Systems with Large Language Models | Supervised by Dr Valerio Terragni

• Sustainable high-performance computing through minimisation of data transfer | Supervised by Professor Oliver Sinnen
  

There are several scholarships you may be eligible for when you decide to pursue your PhD in Operations Research, including the University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarships.

For general student enquiries, please contact a Student Hub.

If you would like to find out more about studying Software Engineering, you can contact a Postgraduate Adviser.