I am an Assistant Professor of Software Engineering at McMaster University, Canada, where I lead the Sustainable Systems and Methods Lab (SSM) and work as a researcher in the McMaster Centre for Software Certification (McSCert).
My research is situated under the broader umbrella of systems engineering, with a particular interest in advanced digital technology in the overlap of model-driven engineering (MDE) and simulation, digital twins and AI.
In my lab, we work on novel reinforcement learning techniques, digital twin architectures, and modeling and simulation methods.
I received my PhD in Computer Science in 2019 from the University of Antwerp, Belgium, for my work on model consistency management in multi-paradigm settings with Prof. Hans Vangheluwe (ex-McGill, currently at University of Antwerp, Belgium). Afterwards, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Software and Sustainability group at VU Amsterdam, the Netherlands with Prof. Ivano Malavolta; and at University of Montréal, Canada, with Prof. Eugene Syriani and Prof. Houari Sahraoui. In my Master’s years, I worked on streaming model transformations by complex event processing with the VIATRA/IncQuery team at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary, headed by Prof. Daniel Varro (ex-McGill, currently at Linköping University, Sweden).
I’m active outside of academia as well, mainly in innovation consulting. I served in multiple management and technical roles, most recently as the Head of Innovation for a multinational quality engineering corporation.
Top news (click for more)
- Call for papers: 2nd International Workshop on Low Carbon Computing (LOCO2026)
https://lancaster-university.github.io/loco2026 The carbon footprint of ICT is rising despite the urgent need to decarbonise society and to stay within planetary boundaries. The operational and embodied carbon emissions from ICT are … - Call for papers: 3nd International Workshop on Sustainability and Modeling (SusMod) – co-located with MODELS’26
https://sustainability-and-modeling.github.io/ Sustainability is becoming a key characteristic of modern systems. While this trend has been long recognized, rigorous formal methods for assessing sustainability, reasoning about often contradicting sustainability properties, and … - Call for papers: International Workshop on Collaborative and Participatory Modeling – co-located with MODELS’26
https://copamo.github.io/ Collaborative modeling is a key enabler to engineering complex systems. While mostly focusing on the technical and technological aspects of collaboration, the MDE community has also recognized the need … - I reap what ISO — Guest lecture at Polytechnique Montréal on architecting digital twins on standardized architectures
On March 13, I had the pleasure of giving a guest lecture in Professor Bentley Oakes‘s LOG6953FE – Digital Twin Engineering graduate course at Polytechnique Montreal. Professor Oakes has been offering … - New publication at ICSA’26: A Reference Architecture of Reinforcement Learning Frameworks
Our paper A Reference Architecture of Reinforcement Learning Environments, co-authored with Xiaoran (Sharon) Liu (PhD student in our lab) has been accepted for the 23rd IEEE International Conference on Software … - Bellairs’26 on Continuous Software Engineering
Just wrapped up a fantastic and intensive week of research at the 2026 Workshop on Continuous Software Engineering (CSE), part of the highly successful workshop series at McGill University’s Bellairs … - SoSyM Best Reviewer Award 2025
I am honored to receive a Best Reviewer Award from the International Journal on Software and Systems Modeling (SoSyM) for my 2025 efforts. The award comes after two similar awards … - ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award at MODELS’25
We (with my former student) are honored to receive the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award at the ACM/IEEE 28th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS) for …
Other news (click for more)
- Lisa and Chehine join labLisa-Kooner Singh (undergraduate researcher) and Chéhine Zouari (international research student with Mitacs Globalink) joined our lab for this Summer. Lisa will work on reinforcement learning and simulation-related topics; Chéhine will …
- Guest lecture by Professor Bentley Oakes in our Engineering Digital Twins courseIt is my pleasure to welcome my good friend, Professor Bentley Oakes (Polytechnique Montréal) as a guest lecturer in my Engineering Digital Twins course at McMaster University (CAS 782) this …
- Guest lecture by Dr Enxhi Ferko in our digital twin courseIt is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Enxhi Ferko (Digital Twin Specialist at Jotne Connect) as a guest lecturer in my Engineering Digital Twins course at McMaster University (CAS 782) …
- Distinguished Reviewer Award at MODELS’25I am truly honored to receive a Distinguished Reviewer Award from the ACM/IEEE 28th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS). Being invited to the Program Committee …