Since March 2026, I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zürich, Switzerland, advised by Prof. Dr. Alberto Bacchelli. Before that, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (MPI-SWS), Kaiserslautern, Germany, advised by Prof. Dr. Rupak Majumdar.
Research Interests
My research work focuses on automatically ensuring and increasing the correctness (i.e., soundness and completeness/precision), consistency, and performance of various types of software systems, from program analysis tools (such as static analyzers, SMT solvers, and deductive verifiers) to large language models (LLMs).
Student Projects
I am happy to advise students for their Bachelor or Master theses, practical work, or internships. Please contact me and we will define together a suitable project.
Education
- PhD in Computer Science: ETH Zürich, Switzerland, 2016 - 2022
- MSc. in Computer Science (European Master in Software Engineering): Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy and Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Germany, 2013 - 2015
- Thesis: Alternative Approaches for Quantitative State/Event Fault Trees Analysis
- Advisors: Prof. Dr. Barbara Russo, Prof. Dr. Peter Liggesmeyer, MSc. Michael Roth
- BSc. in Computer and Software Engineering (Major in Software Engineering): Politehnica University of Timisoara, Romania, 2009 - 2013
- Thesis: Extensions of the phantm Analyzer to support Model Extraction from PHP Web Applications
- Advisor: Prof. Dr. Marius Minea
Publications
- Identifying Overly Restrictive Matching Patterns in SMT-based Program Verifiers (extended version), A. Bugariu, A. Ter-Gabrielyan, P. Müller, Formal Aspects of Computing (FAC), 2023
- Identifying Overly Restrictive Matching Patterns in SMT-based Program Verifiers, A. Bugariu, A. Ter-Gabrielyan, P. Müller, Formal Methods (FM), 2021
- Automatically Testing String Solvers, A. Bugariu, P. Müller, Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), 2020
- Automatically Testing Implementations of Numerical Abstract Domains, A. Bugariu, V. Wüstholz, M. Christakis, P. Müller, Automated Software Engineering (ASE), 2018
Service
- ICSE’27,’26, PLDI’26 SRC, ISSTA’26, FSE’26 IVR, ASE’26,’25, SOAP’24, OOPSLA’24, ICSE’24 AEC, ECOOP’23 ERC, ECOOP’23 AEC, Fuzzing’22 AEC, PLDI’22 AEC, CAV’21 AEC, PLDI’21 AEC: PC member
- STTT’25, TOSEM’25,’24, TOSEM’22 Replicated Computational Results: Reviewer
- ETH Zürich Hiring Committee for Computer Science’21: Scientific staff representative
- PLDI’19, ECOOP/PLDI’17: Student volunteer
Events
- Dagstuhl Seminar 25061: Logic and Neural Networks
- 8th Heidelberg Laureate Forum’21
- Virtual Heidelberg Laureate Forum’20
- Marktoberdorf Summer School’16: Dependable Software Systems Engineering
Teaching
- Rigorous Software Engineering, BSc. course, ETH Zürich: Invited lecturer (SS’26, SS’24), Co-lecturer (SS’23), Teaching assistant (SS’20)
- Concepts of Object-Oriented Programming, MSc. course, ETH Zürich: Head teaching assistant (AS’21, AS’20), Teaching assistant (AS’19, AS’18, AS’17)
- Parallel Programming, BSc. course, ETH Zürich: Teaching assistant (SS’19)
- Research Topics in Software Engineering, MSc. seminar, ETH Zürich: Teaching assistant (AS’19, AS’17)
- Software Architecture and Engineering, BSc. course, ETH Zürich: Head teaching assistant (SS’18), Teaching assistant (SS’17)
- Informatik I, BSc. course, ETH Zürich: Teaching assistant (AS’16)
Advised Students
- H. Mehmood: Automatically Checking LLM-Generated Answers, MSc. Thesis, University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (AS’24)
- S. Kühne: Automatically Explaining and Localizing Semantic Errors in SMT Solvers, MSc. Thesis, ETH Zürich (AS’24)
- R. van Doren: Alternative SMT Encodings for Congestion Control Algorithms, Practical Work, ETH Zürich (SS’24)
- S. Kühne: Automatically Testing Solvers for String and Regular Expressions Constraints, BSc. Thesis, ETH Zürich (AS’21)
- K. Thommen: Automatically Testing MAX-SMT Solvers, BSc. Thesis, ETH Zürich (AS’21)
- M. Hurmuz: Automatically Generating Java Benchmarks with Known Errors, MSc. Thesis, ETH Zürich (AS’21)
- O. Becker: Automatically Testing SMT Solvers, BSc. Thesis, ETH Zürich (AS’21)
- P. Strebel: Explaining Unsatisfiability Proofs through Examples, BSc. Thesis, ETH Zürich (SS’21) (co-advised with Dr. Malte Schwerhoff)
- R. Sherif Abdelbar: Automated Checking of Implicit Assumptions on Textual Data, BSc. Thesis, ETH Zürich (SS’18) (co-advised with Dr. Caterina Urban)
- M. Schumacher: Automated Generation of Data Quality Checks, MSc. Thesis, ETH Zürich (AS’17) (co-advised with Dr. Caterina Urban)