Lero, the SFI Research Centre for Software, hosted by University of Limerick, today announced Professors Federica Sarro and John Grundy as the newest recipients of the prestigious David Lorge Parnas Fellowship. This fellowship, established to honour Professor David Parnas, recognises the outstanding accomplishments and contributions of talented software researchers and developers worldwide. 

"We are delighted to award Lero Parnas Fellowships to Professors Sarro and Grundy," said Professor Brian Fitzgerald, Director of Lero. "They join an exclusive group of internationally distinguished academics who work closely with Lero researchers and industry partners. We look forward to welcoming Federica and John to Ireland and to Lero."

The Parnas Fellowship is a senior position that allows exceptional individuals to visit Lero on a short-term basis, enabling them to collaborate closely with relevant industry partners. As part of their tenure, the fellows will deliver a Distinguished Lecture, sharing their knowledge and insights with Lero students and staff. 

Professor Sarro, Professor of Software Engineering and Head of the Software System Engineering group at University College London (UK), brings extensive expertise in Search-Based Software Engineering, Empirical Software Engineering, and Software Analytics. Her research focuses on automated software management, optimisation, testing, and repair. With over 100 peer-reviewed scholarly articles to her name, Professor Sarro is highly regarded in her field and has been invited to present her work at numerous international industrial and academic events. 

Professor Sarro has also worked in collaboration with several companies including Bloomberg, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. In 2021, she was awarded the Rising Star Award by the IEEE Technical Community on Software Engineering in recognition of her “excellence in Software Engineering research with scholarly and real-world impact”.

Professor Sarro has served in leadership roles for software engineering international events including as Programme Chair and Steering Committee member of ACM/IEEE ASE, IEEE ICSME, ACM/IEEE ESEM, and as Associate Editor of the ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM). She recently completed a 3-year term as member of the Executive Committee of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Community on Software Engineering.

Professor Grundy, is an Australian Laureate Fellow and Professor of Software Engineering at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His research interests include automated software engineering, human-centric software engineering, software performance and security engineering, and computing education. His teaching focuses on final year team industry capstone and research projects. He is Fellow of Engineers Australia and Fellow of Automated Software Engineering, Senior Member of ACM and IEEE, Chartered Engineer and Engineering Executive. He has received the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Service Award, CORE Distinguished Service Award and IEEE TCSE Distinguished Educator Award.

Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software, is Ireland's national software research centre and is committed to establishing the country as a hub for high-quality software research and development. Its mission is to establish Ireland as a global hub for high-quality software research and development. Bringing together expert software teams from universities and institutes of technology across the country, Lero's research spans various areas such as driverless cars, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, fintech, govtech, smart communities, agtech, and healthtech. Its academic partners include renowned universities and institutes of technology across Ireland.