University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa faculty and students were front and center at an international conference, helping to shape the future of information technology, cybersecurity and more.
The (ESEM 2025) was held in Honolulu, September 28–October 3, as part of Empirical Software Engineering International Week. The conference brought together more than 100 leading researchers and practitioners from multiple countries in the field of software engineering. 东精影业 Mānoa stood out through exceptional faculty leadership, student involvement and research contributions.
Three faculty members held key leadership roles in organizing the conference: Associate Professor Daniel Port served as general chair of ESEM 2025, overseeing the event’s overall planning and execution; Department of Information Technology Management Professor Rick Kazman was finance chair; and (ICS) Assistant Professor Anthony Peruma was the student volunteer chair, managing a team of volunteers who supported the conference sessions and logistics. Additionally, ICS Assistant Professor Italo Santos assisted with local arrangements.
Beyond faculty leadership, 东精影业 Mānoa was represented by four graduate students from the ICS department—Derek Garcia, Kayla-Marie Torres, Carol Wong and Briana Lee—along with ICS Senior Academic Advisor Kenny Kaʻaiakamanu-Quibilan, who served as conference volunteers, helping ensure the event’s success, while gaining valuable professional experience and exposure to leading research in the field.
东精影业’s research presence was strong, with four papers presented at the conference authored by faculty and students from ICS, demonstrating the department’s growing contributions to cutting-edge software engineering research.
The papers covered a range of topics:
- “” investigated how large language models can assist in automatically enhancing method naming practices in scientific codebases.
- “” examined the extent and patterns of identifier similarities across software projects.
- “” proposed a novel vulnerability detection system to identify and verify sensitive information exposure in Java applications.
- “” synthesized research on tools and methods to assist new contributors joining software projects.
“东精影业 Mānoa’s prominent participation in this internationally recognized conference underscores its rising influence in the global empirical software engineering community,” Peruma said. “The combination of leadership, scholarship and student engagement reflects the university’s commitment to advancing software engineering education and research.”