Executive committee
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The overall management of the Centre is the role of the Executive Committee. This team sets goals, monitors progress, identifies opportunities and deals with any issues that arise. Every partner institution is represented. Membership is as follows:
Prof. Lionel Briand
Professor Lionel C. Briand began his role as Director of Lero and Professor of Software Engineering in University of Limerick’s Department of Computer Science and Information Systems on January 1, 2024. He has a shared appointment as professor of software engineering at the University of Ottawa, Canada. In collaboration with colleagues, over 30 years, Prof. Briand has run research projects with companies in the automotive, satellite, aerospace, energy, financial, and legal domains. He has held various engineering, academic, and leadership positions in six countries.
Prof. Briand was elevated to the grade of fellow by both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for his work on software testing and verification. He was granted the IEEE Computer Society Harlan Mills award, the ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT) outstanding research award, and the IEEE Reliability Society engineer-of-the-year award, respectively in 2012, 2022, and 2013. He further received a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant in 2016 - on the topic of modelling and testing cyber-physical systems - which is the most prestigious individual research award in the European Union and was elected a fellow of the Academy of Science, Royal Society of Canada in 2023.
Prof. Briand currently holds a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) on "Intelligent Software Dependability and Compliance". His research interests include: software testing and verification (including security aspects), trustworthy AI, applications of AI in software engineering, model-driven software development, requirements engineering, and empirical software engineering.
Prof. Briand earned his PhD in Computer Science in 1994 from the University of Paris Saclay, France.
Prof. Brian Fitzgerald
Prof Brian Fitzgerald is former director and Co-Principal Investigator for Lero. He holds an endowed professorship, the Frederick A Krehbiel II Chair in Innovation in Global Business & Technology, at the University of Limerick, Ireland, where he was also Vice President Research from 2008-2011. He is Principal Investigator in Lero and was Founding Director of the Lero Graduate School in Software Engineering. His research interests, i.e. primarily in software development, encompassing development methods, Global software development, agile methods and open source software.
Prof. Conor Ryan
Professor Conor Ryan is Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Limerick. He was awarded his PhD in Genetic Programming, a style of Machine Learning, in 1996, and was the inventor, along with two of his PhD students, of Grammatical Evolution, in 1998. Grammatical Evolution is the most commonly used non-patented Evolutionary Automatic Programming system in the world, and has spawned thousands of publications since its inception. Conor was a Fulbright Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) in 2013-2014. He holds several granted patents in the use of Machine Learning to extend the life and reliability of Flash Memory and Solid State Disks (SSDs), and was the co-founder of two companies, Evolvability and NVMdurance, both of which are located in Limerick. Conor’s research group, the Biocomputing and Developmental Systems (BDS) group, within Lero conducts research into areas such as Machine Learning, Evolutionary Computation and the application of these techniques to large scale problems, such as mammography.
Prof. Greg Provan
Professor Gregory Provan is a Professor at the Computer Science Department at University College Cork. Before coming to UCC he worked for Rockwell Scientific, focusing on embedded systems for the Space Shuttle and commercial aircraft. His current research interests are in model-based diagnostics and control; large-scale systems modelling; model transformation; component-based model development; embedded systems and embedded code generation.
Dr Jim Buckley
Jim is a Principal Investigator in Lero and leads the TREES (Trustworthy, Responsible, Efficient Engineering of Software) centre of excellence within Lero: a €6 million centre funded entirely by industry. Follow this link to find out more about the centre and the research positions currently available.
Prof. Kieran Conboy
Kieran Conboy is a Professor in Business Information Systems in the School of Business & Economics in NUI Galway and is a co-Principal Investigator in the Lero Irish Software research centre. He previously worked for Accenture Consulting and the University of New South Wales in Australia. He is also on the board of the Irish Research Council. Kieran teaches information systems innovation, agile and lean project management, portfolio management, and contemporary models such as crowdsourcing and crowdfunding.
Prof. Tiziana Margaria
Prof Tiziana Margaria received a Laurea in Electrical Engineering and a PhD degree in Computer and Systems Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, Italy. She has broad experience in the use of formal methods for high assurance systems. Her current research focuses on advanced service engineering techniques supporting reliability and compliance through a model-driven version of service-oriented development called xMDD (eXtreme Model Driven Design) and the embedding of selected formal methods in the development platform.
Prof. Luigina Ciolfi
Luigina Ciolfi is Professor of Human Computer Interaction in the School of Applied Psychology at University College Cork, Ireland. She currently serve as Vice-Head of School and as Chair of the Academic Council Research and Innovation Committee. She is a Co-Principal Investigator of Lero, the Research Ireland Centre for Software. Ciolfi has a multidisciplinary background in social sciences, computing and design, and researches human practices and experiences of digital technologies in everyday settings, by adopting qualitative and participatory methodologies. She participated in many national and international research projects on topics such as mobile and flexible work, cultural heritage technologies and responsible software. She has previously held academic posts at the University of Limerick (2007-2012) and at Sheffield Hallam University (2012-2020), and she has been visiting faculty at the University of Rome Tor Vergata (2006), and a visiting research fellow at the Maynooth University Social Sciences Insitute (2020).
Colfi has contributed to many successful research funding proposals both as Lead and Co- Investigator. She is a trained mentor and has facilitated several doctoral consortia and development workshops for early career researchers. She has been an invited speaker in fifteen countries, and served as an expert reviewer and evaluator for many national and international agencies, including the European Commission.
Ciolfi is an Associate Editor of the CSCW Journal, and a scientific referee and committee member for many conferences and journals in her field. Highlights include: Steering Committee Member, EUSSET - The European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies (2016-2018); Steering Committee Member, ACM CSCW (2016-2020); General Co-Chair, ACM TEI'24; General Co-Chair, ACM CSCW 2021; SubCommittee Co-Chair, CHI 2018-2019; General Chair ECSCW 2017; Scientific Co-chair COOP 2014; Papers co-chair ACM CSCW 2015; PC member: ACM CHI, DIS-Designing Interactive Systems, ACM GROUP, ACM TEI, ACM CSCW, ECSCW, COOP.
Ciolfi is a senior member of ACM SIGCHI and ACM Distinguished Speaker, and member of EUSSET – the European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies and graduate member of the British Psychological Society.
Prof. Siobhan Clarke
Siobhan is a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin. Her current research focus is on software engineering models for the provision of smart and dynamic software services to urban stakeholders, addressing research challenges in the engineering of dynamic software in large-scale, ad hoc, mobile environments.
Dr Markus Helfert
Dr Markus Helfert is Director of the Business Informatics Group at Dublin City University, and a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems at the School of Computing, Dublin City University. He is Funded Investigator at Lero. His research interests include Information Management, Innovation, Cloud Computing, Service Science, Enterprise Architecture and Smart Cities and Smart Buildings. He advises several small and medium sized Enterprise in relation to Innovation and IT Management. Markus Helfert has authored more than 200+ academic articles, journal and book contributions and has presented his work at international conferences. He is member of international programme committees and reviewer and associate editor of IS journals. Dr. Helfert has received national and international grants from agencies such as European Union (FP7; H2020), Science Foundation Ireland and Enterprise Ireland. Prior to his appointment at Dublin City University, he held a research position at the Institute of Information Management at the University of St. Gallen. Dr. Helfert holds a PhD from the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), an MSc from the University of Mannheim (Germany) and a BSc from Napier University in Scotland (UK).
Prof. Ita Richardson
Professor Ita Richardson is an Associate Professor with the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick. She leads several Lero work programmes in Software Engineering for Healthcare. She is also an SFI Industry Fellow and a PI in the Applied Research in Connected Health Technology Centre funded by EI and IDA. She leads an IRC Employment-based project and is PI on EU project FESTA: Female Empowerment in Science and Technology Academia.
Prof. Mike O'Neill
Michael holds the ICON Chair of Business Analytics, is Vice-Principal for Research, Innovation & Impact in the UCD College of Business, and a founding Director of the UCD Natural Computing Research & Applications Group. He was Director of UCD's Institute for interdisciplinary research, the UCD Complex & Adaptive Systems Laboratory (CASL) from 2012 to 2015. One of the inventors of Grammatical Evolution, he is the lead author of the seminal book on this subject, and is independently ranked as one of the top 5 researchers in Genetic Programming.
Prof. Brian Donnellan
Professor Brian Donnellan is Vice President of Engagement and Innovation, and Professor of Management Information Systems at Maynooth University where he is responsible for Enterprise/Regional Engagement and Innovation. He is also Chairman of the All-Ireland Smart Cities Forum and board member of the Irish Centre for Local and Regional Development. He is Co-Principal Investigator in Lero and the Smart Cities Research Centre, Enable. He is a Funded Investigator in Confirm, the SFI Research Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and in Connect, the SFI Research Centre for Future Networks and Communications.
Brian’s research interests include Technology Adoption, Innovation Management and Data Governance. He teaches in the areas on topics relating to IT-enabled innovation and Technology Management. Prior to becoming an academic, he spent 19 years working in the ICT industry.
Prof Edward Jones
Prof Edward Jones holds the BE degree in Electronic Engineering (First Class Honours), and the PhD degree in Electronic Engineering, both from National University of Ireland Galway. His PhD research topic was on the development of computational auditory models for speech processing. He is currently a Personal Professor in Electrical & Electronic Engineering at NUI Galway.
Prof. Mike Hinchey
Professor Mike Hinchey is the former Director of Lero and Professor of Software Engineering at the University of Limerick. Prof Hinchey was previously Director of the Software Engineering Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland. He remains as a consultant to NASA. His work with NASA was implemented in various space projects and will be incorporated in future missions. Particular areas of software research for Professor Hinchey include Formal Methods, Autonomous Systems and Software Reliability.
Dr Fergal Mc Caffery
Dr Fergal McCaffery is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computing and Mathematics at Dundalk Institute of Technology and is a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Principal Investigator. His current research interests include the development of a software development framework for the medical device industry, software process improvement frameworks and assessments, and global software development. He is involved in several spin-out companies in this area. He has also been appointed to an advisory committee for medical devices by the Minister of Health.
Professor Joseph Walsh
Mechatronics and RFID (IMaR) Research Centre and the AgriTech Centre of Excellence (ACE) based at the MTU. He has a Ph.D in Electronic Engineering and an M.Sc (Eng) in Bio‐engineering from the University of Limerick (UL). Prof. Walsh has worked on national and international projects with both industry and research institutes and has received circa. €20 million in research funding over the past 5 years. His research experience encompasses the field of intelligent mechatronics and sensors, dairy technology, intelligent senor systems, robotics, automation, autonomous systems and bio‐instrumentation and is well published in these areas. He is a Fellow of Institute of Physics (FinstP) and has been awarded the titles of Chartered Engineer and Physicist.
Prof. Walsh established and leads the IMaR Research Centre with over 50 researchers, which is part of the Enterprise Ireland Technology Gateway Network, and is a Co - Principal Investigator and AgriTech/Food Co Lead with Lero, SFI Centre for Software. He is currently leading on a number of targeted industry projects, which have generated IP, IDFs and licenses. Prof. Walsh also led the development of the AgriTech Centre of Excellence (ACE), which is spin out public private partnership company supported by Enterprise Ireland, collaborating with a number of tier one Irish AgriTech companies such as Dairymaster, McHale Engineering and Abbey Machinery.
Prof. Gabriel-Miro Muntean
Prof. Gabriel-Miro Muntean is a Professor with the School of Electronic Engineering, Dublin City University (DCU), Ireland, and Co-Director of the DCU Performance Engineering Laboratory. Prof. Muntean was awarded the PhD degree by DCU for research on adaptive multimedia delivery in 2004 and BEng and MEng degrees in Software Engineering by "Politehnica" University of Timisoara, Romania in 1996 and 1997, respectively. He has published over 400 papers in top-level international journals and conferences, authored four books and 22 book chapters, and edited six additional books. His research interests include quality, performance, and energy saving issues related to multimedia and multiple sensorial media delivery, technology-enhanced learning, and other data communications over heterogeneous networks. Prof. Muntean is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, the Multimedia Communications Area Editor of the IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, and reviewer for important international journals, conferences, and funding agencies. Prof. Muntean was the Coordinator of the EU Horizon 2020 Project NEWTON and is the Principal Investigator of the EU Horizon 2020 Project TRACTION. He is a senior member of IEEE and IEEE Broadcast Technology Society.
Dr Anthony Ventresque
Dr Anthony Ventresque founded and leads the TCD Complex Software Lab. Dr Ventresque received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Nantes & INRIA France in 2008. He is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and a Funded Investigator with Lero, the SFI Irish Software Research Centre. Previously he held positions as Research Fellow at NTU, Singapore (2010–2011), UCD, Ireland (2012–2014) IBM Research Dublin, Ireland (2014–2015) and UCD, Ireland (Assistant Prof.: 2015-2022 and Visiting Associate Prof: 2023-now).
Joe Gibbs
Joe Gibbs is General Manager of Lero, responsible for all the non-research aspects of the Centre’s work. He heads up a central team that manages finance, operations, facilities, outreach, contracts and reporting, as well as the process of bidding for research funding in conjunction with industry and academic partners.
Susan Mitchell
Susan Mitchell is Lero Centre Manager based in the Lero Centre Headquarters in UL. Susan leads the Lero Administration Support Team and EU Project Support. She manages the Lero Centre finances across all Lero HEIs. She has over 20 years’ experience in project management. Prior to joining UL, Susan worked in various roles in project management, training and business analysis in the software industry.
