September 13, 2023
Intel has selected Owolabi Legunsen, assistant professor of computer science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, to receive the 2023 Rising Star Faculty Award.
The annual award honors early-career academic researchers who have the "potential to disrupt the industry" through technological advances and novel contributions in the fields of computer science, electrical engineering, computer engineering, and chemical engineering.
Legunsen is one of fifteen winners. He will receive a one-time award of $50,000, to be used for research, curriculum development, conference travel, and lab infrastructure.
"I am both honored to receive this award and excited for the opportunities it presents," Legunsen said. "I am also very grateful to my mentors, collaborators, and students for all their advice, help, and research contributions."
Legunsen's recent research has focused on integrating runtime verification with regression testing, and filling long-time gaps in software testing with cTests, which validate cloud-system configuration changes, and inline tests, which find bugs in individual program statements. His inline testing tool is now part of Python's testing framework. In the coming years, Legunsen aims to create new algorithms and techniques to specialize runtime verification for software testing.
In their announcement of the award, Intel wrote: "The program proudly recognizes community members who are doing exceptional work in the field and hopes to facilitate long-term collaborative relationships with senior technical leaders at Intel. Award recipients are also chosen for their innovative teaching methods and for their efforts to improve the fields of computer science and engineering."