Feng Qin Receives NSF CAREER


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The National Science Foundation has awarded CSE Assistant Professor Feng Qin a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for his research entitled Building Immunity to Memory Management Bugs during Production Runs. Feng's five-year project will explore novel ways to mitigate memory management bugs, a major category of common software defects. Studies show that memory management bugs may account for 43% of the reported software failures. Feng aims to employ a systemic approach for providing immunity to memory bugs during productions runs by performing online diagnosis once a memory bug or failure is detected, then generate and apply runtime immune patches to the running program for surviving and preventing memory bug occurrences or failures.

Before joining the department in 2006, Feng received his PhD in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his master's degree from the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences and his bachelor's degree from the University of Science and Technology in China, both in computer science. Feng's research focuses on software dependability, operating systems and security.

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. Such activities aim to build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research.

The department has a long history of fostering strong young faculty. Feng is the department's 25th Career and National Young Investigator award recipient from the National Science Foundation.