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Staff profile

Overview

Dr Nelly Bencomo

Associate Professor

PhD

Affiliations
AffiliationRoom numberTelephone
Associate Professor in the Department of Computer ScienceMCS2017+44 (0) 191 33 42713

Biography

Looking for a PhD ?

Potential new PhD students: having good PhD students can be super rewarding! I am always interested in receiving new good PhD Students. Contact me to talk about your research proposals, academic visits or scholarships.

PhD Funding Opportunities: 

NEWS: For early March 2023, the CS Department at Durham is offering several PhD studentships (some National and 4 International). You would need the interview and offer by February 2023.

---> There are always funding opportunities offered (in Durham and other sources. <--- It is about being ready for when they appear). Perhaps you can search for your own funding opportunities). Therefore, a good step is to apply for a PhD as soon as possible. Email me if you want to get the instructions to start your application.

If you bring your own research funding, I am more than happy to chat (email me if you have your own research funding)

Research and Biography

I exploit the interdisciplinary aspects of software engineering, comprising both technical and human concerns while developing techniques for intelligent, autonomous and highly distributed systems.

I am an Associate Professor in the CS Department at Durham University. Earlier, I was a Senior Lecturer (equiv. Associate Professor) in the Computer Science Department at Aston University. From September 2020 I am the PI of the EPSRC Twenty20Insight research project. In 2019 I was granted the Leverhulme Fellowship "QuantUn: quantification of uncertainty using Bayesian surprises." Before, I was a Marie Curie Fellow at INRIA Paris - Roquencourt. The Marie Curie project is called Requirements-aware Systems (nickname: Requirements@run.time). Before, that I was a Senior Research Associate at Lancaster University (UK) where I also got my PhD.

Publications:
Google Scholar citations  

DBLP 

Research Projects:

Current and Recent Projects

– EPSRC Research Twenty20Insight (EPSRC link) (2020-2024) Principal Investigator, £892,384 (total Value to Aston and then Durham £586,520) website Twenty20Insight

- Research Fellowship by Leverhulme Trust “QuantUn: Quantification of Uncertainty using Bayesian Surprises” (2019-2020)

– ReqModAI Requirements Models for Artificial Intelligence: Framework and Casestudy (Jul- Nov 2022)

Past Research Projects

- Marie Curie Action Intra-European Fellowship requirements@runtime: Requirements-aware Systems, €222.547, Inria, France, (2011-2013)

- 2 VC international PhD scholarships, Aston University, (2018)

- Faculty PhD scholarship, Aston University (2015)

- Visiting Scholar Funding 2015, Aston University

- M@TURE Models @ run Time for self-adaptive pervasive systems: enabling User-in-the-loop, REquirement-awareness, and interoperability in ad hoc settings, 24-month, Inria-funded international collaboration grant (Brazil-France). We also won a second version (2014-2016) 

Awards / Rewards:

- 10 year Most Influential Paper Award 2019, "RELAX: Incorporating Uncertainty into the Specification of Self-Adaptive Systems", by Jon Whittle, Pete Sawyer, Nelly Bencomo, Betty H.C. Cheng, Jean-Michel Bruel, Proceedings of 17th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE09), pp. 7988, September 2009, Atlanta, Georgia.

- 10 year Most Influential Paper Award 2019, "A Goal-Based Modeling Approach to Develop Requirements of an Adaptive System with Environmental Uncertainty" by Betty H.C. Cheng, Pete Sawyer, Nelly Bencomo, Jon Whittle, in the Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MoDELS 2009), pp. 468483, Denver, Colorado, 2009.

- Best Paper Award REFSQ 2013: "Supporting Decision-making for Self-adaptive Systems: From Goal Models to Dynamic Decision Networks" by N. Bencomo, A. Belaggoun 

Current and Previous PhD Students

- Owen Reynold, since January 2019 (co-supervision with Antonio Garcia)

 Students under my supervision in the past:

- Huma Samin, since April 2019 (co-supervision with Pete Sawyer). Graduated Nov 2022. Now a Post Doc at Durham University

- Juan Marcelo Parra, since October 2018 (co-supervision with Antonio Garcia). Graduated, December 2022. Now a Post Doc at Bristol University

- Luis Hernan Garcia Paucar, PhD, Graduated, March 2020. Now working at Aston University

- Amel Belaggoun, Master Universite de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and TELECOM SudParis and Inria, France, Graduated 2013

 - Ross Edwards, 2018

Miscellaneous

in other words, what is really important!

In Durham, I am planning to enjoy Durham County, Scotland and the Lake District among other beautiful places in the North and East of the UK :)

During my time in Birmingham, I was not working I liked walking on the hills (the Malvern Hills, Snowdonia) or running, or perhaps dancing or taking pictures or hanging around with my family and friends and of course Talisker my dog. I enjoy running by the canal in Birmingham. I wish I could have more time for these activities.

During my time in Paris, I used to go to Museums & Cafes :) if my daughter did not decide something else. I also did some exercise with my dog running near Inria and by the river Seine in Paris. Happy days!

I love eating good food and I am MAD about sushi. I LOVE chocolate, BTW dark and bitter chocolate, if it is not at least 75% Cocoa that is not chocolate :). If chocolate is from Venezuela even better!

Research interests

  • decision making under uncertainty
  • autonomous systems
  • runtime models
  • AI/ML
  • Software Engineering
  • Software Engineering for Autonomous and Self-adaptive Systems
  • Software Engineering for AI/ML Systems

Esteem Indicators

Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

  • Computer Science:

Publications

Conference Paper

Journal Article