Tse-Hsun (Peter) Chen has received the 2024 Outstanding Early Career Computer Science Researcher Award from CS-CAN-INFO-CAN, which represents computer science researchers and departments across Canada. The associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering is one of three researchers in Canada to receive the honour.
The award highlights early-career professors who stand out for excellence in research.
Understanding why software systems fail
Chen studies how to make large and complex software systems run more reliably. His work helps developers understand why systems fail and how to prevent the same problems from happening again. He achieves this by studying the information that software produces while it runs, often called runtime data or software logs. This data allows his team to trace the root cause of failures and improve testing practices.
His research also introduces new approaches for identifying faults in code, a process known as fault localization. By connecting software logs with code change history and source code, he gives development teams clearer insights into where errors originate and how to address them faster.
More than 50 publications
Chen has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers in leading venues, such as IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, and the International Conference on Software Engineering.
His methods have been applied in collaborations with companies including Microsoft, BlackBerry, Ericsson, RedHat and ERA Environmental. His work continues to attract attention from industry groups developing tools used widely for log analysis and software quality assurance.
Learn more about the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at Concordia.
