Boost for UL based Lero centre as software star joins

ONE of the top software academics in Europe is joining Lero, the Irish Software Research Centre, based at the University of Limerick.

Professor Tiziana Margaria has been appointed to the position of Professor of Software Systems. She was previously Professor of Service and Software Engineering at the University of Potsdam in Germany and is a former head of the Institute of Informatics.

Professor Margaria is currently vice-president of the European Association of Software Science and Technology (EASST) and president of FMICS (the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics Working Group on Formal Methods for Industrial Critical Systems).

“Attracting a leading European academic like Tiziana to Ireland is a major coup for Lero and the Irish software sector,” commented Professor Mike Hinchey, director of Lero.

“She is widely respected across Europe and brings valuable industry experience as CEO of a number of start-up companies as well as a brilliant academic and research track record.”

Lero’s main objective is to bring together software engineering teams from universities and ITs. It has a team of six partnering institutions – University of Limerick, DCU, UCD, Trinity College Dublin, NUI and Dundalk Institute of Technology - with a strong focus on industry and is now one of the best and highly regarded software engineering research centres in the world.

Professor Margaria said she was “attracted to Ireland because I believe it is a really exciting place to be now in terms of European software research.

“I love the way Lero works with and adds value to both indigenous start-ups as well as top Silicon Valley multinationals.”

Lero has also made a substantial contribution both to software engineering research and to the Irish economy. The centre is supported by a grant from the Science Foundation Ireland and from other grants handed out by the state and industry.