Lan Lin

LAN LIN		Contact Info

Professor		E-mail: llin4@bsu.edu
		Office: RB 446
Ph.D., University of Tennessee		Department of Computer Science
M.Sc., University of British Columbia		Robert Bell Building, Room 455
		Ball State University
Ph.D. Advisor: Dr. Jesse H. Poore		Muncie, IN 47306

My life has been impacted by some great and incomparable professors. Among them are my Ph.D. and Post-doc advisor Dr. Jesse H. Poore, Dr. Michael D. Vose and Dr. Carl G. Wagner, all from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. To them I owe a deep debt of gratitude forever.

Software engineering
Rigorous software specification
Automated model-based statistical testing
Automated verification
Theoretical computer science
Combinatorics

CS 124 - Discrete Structures	Fall 22-25, Spring 14, 23-25
CS 224 - Design and Analysis of Algorithms	Fall 19
CS 380 - Theory of Computation 1	Fall 24, Spring 25
CS 439 - Rigorous Software Specification and Testing	Spring 21, 23
CS 495 - Software Engineering 1	Fall 12-19, 21
CS 496/498 - Software Engineering 2	Spring 13-20, 22

Collaborative Research: Frameworks: Building a Collaboration Infrastructure: CyberWater2 - A Sustainable Data/Model Integration Framework (single PI at Ball State, $69,999.00, National Science Foundation (#2209834), 01/01/23 to 12/31/26.
App Development and Expansion of the Henry Gets Moving Project (as Co-PI, PI: Nicole L. Koontz), $7,753.00, Provost Immersive Learning Pilot Grant, Ball State University, Summer 2022 to Summer 2023.
Collaborative Research: I/UCRC Phase II: Security and Software Engineering Research Center (S²ERC) (single PI), National Science Foundation (#1464654), 10/05/20 to 04/30/22, transferred from previous PI.
Framework: Software: Collaborative Research: CyberWater - An Open and Sustainable Framework for Diverse Data and Model Integration with Provenance and Access to HPC (single PI at Ball State), $39,996.00, National Science Foundation (#1835602), 01/01/19 to 12/31/22.
Software Science: How Far Could Mathematics and Rigor Take Us? (single PI), $38,826.00, Air Force Research Laboratory (through the NSF Security and Software Engineering Research Center), 05/14/18 to 06/15/19.
Quantifying Software Quality through Rigorous Testing and Test Automation: From Theory to Practice (single PI), $30,000.00, Ontario Systems (through the NSF Security and Software Engineering Research Center), 11/01/16 to 10/31/17.
Towards Scalable Modeling for Rigorous Software Specification and Testing (single PI), $50,000.00, Rockwell Collins, Air Force Research Laboratory, and Ontario Systems (through the NSF Security and Software Engineering Research Center), 11/01/14 to 10/31/15.
Combining Rigorous Specification and Testing Methodologies to Achieve High Quality Assurance (single PI), $46,836.00, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman (through the NSF Security and Software Engineering Research Center), 01/01/13 to 12/31/13.
Towards Scalable Methods for Rigorous Software Specification and Testing (single PI), $1,500.00, the ASPiRE New Faculty Start-Up Program, Ball State University, 11/01/12 to 12/31/13.

Ball State University Outstanding Research Award 2022-2023

Melody L. Hammel. Melody was the winner of the Critical Thinking category in the Midwest Association of Student Employment Administrators' Student of the Year program, and the only Ball State student to win one of the national categories in 2024.
Benjamin T. Eger. A Path to Software Quality Assurance: Theory and Practice, Honors Undergraduate Fellowship, August 2021 - January 2022.
Eric E. Vester. Eric's Indiana LSAMP (Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation) Summer 2021 research poster was selected as one of 15 poster submissions by the LSMRCE (Louis Stokes Midwest Regional Center of Excellence) Conference that were invited to submit to the Eaton Tech Poster Session for the "Eaton Experience Week" held virtually on November 15-19, 2021.

L. Lin, Scalable modeling for rigorous software specification and testing, 2016 Compendium of Industry-Nominated NSF I/UCRC Technological Breakthroughs, (2016) 107-108. (Nominated by the Industry Advisory Board of the NSF Security and Software Engineering Research Center for this award, and selected for publication)

J. H. Poore, L. Lin, R. Eschbach, T. Bauer, Automated statistical testing for embedded systems, in: Model-Based Testing for Embedded Systems in the Series on Computational Analysis, Synthesis, and Design of Dynamic Systems, Edited by J. Zander, I. Schieferdecker, P. J. Mosterman, CRC-Press - Taylor & Francis LLC, 2011, 111-146.

W. Zheng, F. Song, L. Lin, Z. Chen, Scaling up parallel computation of tiled QR factorizations by a distributed scheduling runtime system and analytical modeling, Parallel Processing Letters 28 (1) (2018) 1850004-1-1850004-17. (Extended version of the ICPADS 2016 paper)
L. Lin, Y. Xue, F. Song, An algorithm for forward reduction in sequence-based software specification, International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (Special Issue on Best Papers from SEKE 2016) 26 (9 & 10) (2016) 1431-1451. (Extended paper selected from SEKE 2016; only 11 best ranked papers out of 225 accepted papers were selected and invited for submission)
R. Eschbach, L. Lin (corresponding author), J. H. Poore, Applying string-rewriting to sequence-based specification, Formal Methods in System Design 43 (3) (2013) 414-449.
L. Lin, S. J. Prowell, J. H. Poore, An axiom system for sequence-based specification, Theoretical Computer Science 411 (2) (2010) 360-376.
L. Lin, S. J. Prowell, J. H. Poore, The impact of requirements changes on specifications and state machines, Software - Practice and Experience 39 (6) (2009) 573-610.
L. Lin, J. H. Poore, Pushing requirements changes through to changes in specifications, Frontiers of Computer Science in China 2 (4) (2008) 331-343. (Extended paper selected from TASE 2008)

A. Bensch, M. L. Hammel, L. Lin, Augmenting black-box unit testing with crafted mockups and code coverage analysis, in: Proceedings of the 5th Interdisciplinary Conference on Electrics and Computer (INTCEC), Chicago, IL, 2025, to appear.
S. Wolfgang, L. Lin, F. Song, Automated statistical testing and certification of a reliable model-coupling server for scientific computing, in: Proceedings of the 37th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), Pompeii, Italy, 2025, 130-136.
M. L. Hammel, L. Lin, Just enough software engineering for domain scientists in research software development, in: Proceedings of the 4th Interdisciplinary Conference on Electrics and Computer (INTCEC), Chicago, IL, 2024, 1-11.
M. L. Hammel, L. Lin, Assuring domain software quality through workflow testing and specification, in: Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), South San Francisco, CA, 2023, 37-44.
L. T. Connelly, M. L. Hammel, L. Lin, Leveraging best industry practices to developing software for academic research, in: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Management Engineering, Software Engineering and Service Sciences (ICMSS), Wuhan, China, 2023, 7-13. Received Best Oral Presentation Award.
L. T. Connelly, M. L. Hammel, B. T. Eger, L. Lin, Automated unit testing of hydrologic modeling software with CI/CD and Jenkins, in: Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), KSIR Virtual Conference Center, Pittsburgh, PA, 2022, 225-230.
L. Hao, X. Sun, L. Lin, Correctness argument for an SDN MAC learning algorithm, in: Proceedings of the 33rd International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), KSIR Virtual Conference Center, Pittsburgh, PA, 2021, 51-56.
L. Hao, X. Sun, L. Lin, Z. Peng, Correct software by design for software-defined networking: A preliminary study, in: Proceedings of the 32nd International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), KSIR Virtual Conference Center, Pittsburgh, PA, 2020, 127-134.
X. Sun, L. Lin, Leveraging rigorous software specification towards systematic detection of SDN control conflicts, in: Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), Lisbon, Portugal, 2019, 193-198.
Y. Xue, L. Lin, J. C. Tucker, B. Hammons, M. Wolfe, A case study of applying rigorous testing in practice, in: Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Computer Science and Engineering (WCSE), Hong Kong, 2019, 475-481. Received Best Oral Presentation Award.
D. Luna, R. Chen, C. Yuan, Y. Liang, X. Liang, J. Bales, A. M. Castronova, I. Demir, R. P. Hooper, W. F. Krajewski, L. Lin, R. Mantilla, S. Pamidighantam, F. Song, Y. Zhang, CyberWater – An open and sustainable framework for diverse data and model integration (abstract), in: The American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2019, San Francisco, CA, 2019.
L. Lin, X. Sun, A case for systematic detection and rigorous location of SDN control conflicts, in: Proceedings of the 43rd IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN), Chicago, IL, 2018, 291-294.
Y. Xue, L. Lin, X. Sun, F. Song, On a simpler and faster derivation of single use reliability mean and variance for model-based statistical testing, in: Proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), San Francisco Bay, CA, 2018, 635-640.
W. Zheng, F. Song, L. Lin, Designing a synchronization-reducing clustering method on manycores: Some issues and improvements, in: Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Machine Learning in High Performance Computing Environments (MLHPC), Denver, CO, 2017, 9:1-9:8.
Y. Xue, L. Lin, J. C. Tucker, B. Hammons, M. Wolfe, Improving test adequacy and software reliability with practices of statistical testing, in: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Reliability Systems Engineering (ICRSE), Beijing, China, 2017.
L. Lin, Y. Xue, F. Song, A simpler and more direct derivation of system reliability using Markov chain usage models, in: Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), Pittsburgh, PA, 2017, 462-466.
W. Zheng, F. Song, L. Lin, Z. Chen, suCAQR: A simplified communication-avoiding QR factorization solver using the TBLAS framework, in: Proceedings of the 22nd IEEE International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems (ICPADS), Wuhan, China, 2016, 1092-1099.
L. Lin, Y. Xue, Merging software specifications focusing on different system boundaries, in: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice (SERP), Las Vegas, NV, 2016, 44-50.
L. Lin, Y. Xue, An algorithm for forward reduction in sequence-based software specification, in: Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), Redwood city, San Francisco Bay, CA, 2016, 309-316.
P. Nagar, F. Song, L. Zhu, L. Lin, LBM-IB: A parallel library to solve 3D fluid-structure interaction problems on manycore systems, in: Proceedings of the 44th International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP), Beijing, China, 2015, 51-60.
L. Lin, J. He, Y. Xue, An automated testing framework for statistical testing of GUI applications, in: Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), Pittsburgh, PA, 2015, 72-79.
L. Lin, J. He, Y. Zhang, F. Song, Quality assurance through rigorous software specification and testing: A case study, in: Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Soft Computing and Software Engineering (SCSE), Berkeley, CA, Procedia Computer Science 62, 2015, 257-265.
L. Lin, J. He, F. Song, Usage modeling through sequence enumeration for automated statistical testing of a GUI application, in: Proceedings of the 5th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering and Service Science (ICSESS), Beijing, China, 2014, 82-85.
L. Lin, J. H. Poore, S. J. Prowell, A greedy reliability estimator for usage-based statistical testing, in: Proceedings of the 5th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering and Service Science (ICSESS), Beijing, China, 2014, 86-89.
L. Lin, J. H. Poore, R. Eschbach, R. M. Hierons, C. Robinson-Mallett, Augmenting sequence enumeration with string-rewriting for requirements analysis and behavioral specification, in: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering (FASE), Rome, Italy, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 7793, 2013, 179-193.
T. W. Swain, J. M. Carter, C. J. Trammell, L. Lin, A course on software engineering for safety-related systems, in: Proceedings of the 7th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control and Human-Machine Interface Technologies (NPIC & HMIT), Las Vegas, NV, 2010.
L. Lin, J. M. Carter, J. H. Poore, Using state machines to model and manage requirements changes and specification changes, in: Proceedings of the 51st IEEE International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS), Knoxville, TN, 2008, 523-526.
L. Lin, J. H. Poore, Pushing requirements changes through to changes in specifications, in: Proceedings of the 2nd IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Software Engineering (TASE), Nanjing, China, 2008, 289-296.
J. M. Carter, L. Lin, J. H. Poore, Automated functional testing of Simulink control models, in: Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Model-Based Testing in Practice (MOTIP), Berlin, Germany, 2008, 41-50.
M. A. Langston, L. Lin, X. Peng, N. E. Baldwin, C. T. Symons, B. Zhang, A combinatorial approach to the analysis of differential gene expression data, in: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference for the Critical Assessment of Microarray Data Analysis (CAMDA), Durham, NC, 2003, 223-238.

Rigorous Specification and Testing for Secure Software Design, The International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Game Design (ICAICGD), February 24, 2024.
Statistical Testing Based on a Markov Chain Usage Model, tutorial at Ontario Systems, July 14, 2016 (in support of the Ontario Systems funded research project).
Quality Assurance through Rigorous Software Specification and Testing, University of Tennessee, Innovative Computing Laboratory 25 Years of Innovative Computing Workshop, April 2, 2015.
Management of Requirements Changes in Sequence-Based Software Specifications, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Department of Computer and Information Science Spring Colloquium Series, February 15, 2013.

Director, NSF I/UCRC Security and Software Engineering Research Center (S²ERC), July 1, 2020 – April 30, 2022
Member of the Advisory Council on Scholarship for Ball State's Vice Provost for Research, July 1, 2020 – May 31, 2025 (on Task Force regarding Tenure Line Scholarship Practices January 1, 2024 – May 31, 2024)
Member of the BSU Strategic Plan: Goal 4: Scholarship and Societal Impact Working Group, 2024
Member of the BSU Center for Innovation Focus Group, 2024
Keynote Speaker, The 29th Ball State University Student Symposium, April 16, 2024
BSU Graduate School Pathway Mentoring Program Faculty Mentor, 2023 – 2024
Indiana Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (IN LSAMP) Summer Student Research Faculty Mentor, 2021
NSF Site Visitor, 2022
NSF Ad Hoc Reviewer, 2021
NSF Panelist, 2016
Associate Editor, Frontiers of Computer Science, 2015 – 2017
Conference General Co-Chair, The 34th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE) 2022
Conference Co-Chair, The IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering and Service Science (ICSESS) 2020-2025
Conference Program Co-Chair, The 33rd International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE) 2021
Conference Publicity Chair/Co-Chair, The International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE) 2019-2020
Conference Panelist, The 36th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE) 2024
Session Chair, The International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE) 2015-2018, 2021 (served as a keynote session chair), 2022-2023
Session Chair, The International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice (SERP) 2016
Session Chair, The International Conference on Soft Computing and Software Engineering (SCSE) 2015 (served as a keynote session chair)
Program Committee, The IARIA Annual Congress on Frontiers in Science, Technology, Services, and Applications 2025
Program Committee, The International Conference on Software Engineering Advances (ICSEA) 2024-2025
Program Committee, The International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE) 2016-2025
Program Committee, The International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, and Game Design (ICAICGD) 2024
Program Committee, The 12th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering and Service Science (ICSESS) 2021
Program Committee, The International Conference on Future Computational Technologies and Applications (Future Computing) 2015-2019
Program Committee, The International Conference on Management Engineering, Software Engineering and Service Sciences (ICMSS) 2017-2018
Program Committee, The International Conference on Soft Computing and Software Engineering (SCSE) 2015
Program Committee, The International Conference on Software, Multimedia and Communication Engineering (SMCE) 2015
Program Committee, The Workshop on Model-Based Testing in Practice (MoTiP) 2012
Program Committee, The Workshop on Advances in Model-Based Testing (A-MOST) 2011
School coordinator for Ball State University, The Indiana Celebration of Women in Computing Conference (InWIC) 2015-2016
Attendee, The virtual Grace Hopper Celebration (vGHC) 2021 (celebrating women technologists from across the globe)
Women in Computer Science Club Faculty Advisor 2025 -

I deeply appreciate the opportunities I have had working with my students in research. It is a real priviledge to get to know their amazing talents and individuality. I learned no less from the other side of the education.

Alan D. Bauer (B.Sc. May 2021), Aidan T. Bensch (B.Sc. expected May 2026), Levi T. Connelly (B.Sc. May 2021), Benjamin T. Eger (B.Sc. May 2022), Melody L. Hammel (B.Sc. December 2023), Andrew M. Thomas (B.Sc. December 2021)
Liang Hao (M.Sc. July 2019), Jia He (M.Sc. May 2014), Yufeng Xue (M.Sc. December 2018, B.Sc. July 2016)

Research Interests

Courses

Grants

Award

Student Grant or Recognition

NSF Technological Breakthrough Compendium Publication

Book Chapter

Journal Publications

Conference Publications

Invited Talks

Professional Service

Students