Hello! I am Sahar Kokaly
As of Dec 2019 I am working at General Motors, Canada as Software Safety Engineer - Autonomous Driving and Active Safety. I hold a PhD from the Department of Computing and Software at McMaster University. My PhD was co-supervised by Tom Maibaum (McMaster Centre for Software Certification) and Marsha Chechik (University of Toronto). I previously worked as a Researcher and Project Manager (contract) at General Motors, a Research Associate in the Department of Computer Science and the University of Toronto, a Research Engineer on the NECSIS project (a collaboration between GM, IBM, Malina and 8 Canadian Universities) and I am a previous IBMer.
Research
My research has been in the areas of Model-Driven Engineering and Software Safety Assurance. I focus on the topics of model management, heterogenous megamodeling, and applications of model driven engineering in industry, most recently in the context of ISO 26262 automotive system safety compliance.Read Dr. Lionel Briand's external review of my PhD thesis here.
Publications
Papers
Mona Rahimi, Jin L.C. Guo, Sahar Kokaly, Marsha Chechik
AIRE'19 at RE'19.
Querying Automotive System Models and Safety Artifacts with MMINT and Viatra.
Alessio Di Sandro, Sahar Kokaly, Rick Salay, Marsha Chechik
MASE'19 at MODELS'19.
Uncertainty, Modeling and Safety Assurance: Towards a Unified Framework.
Marsha Chechik, Sahar Kokaly, Mona Rahimi, Rick Salay, Torin Viger
VSTTE'19 invited paper.
Software Assurance in an Uncertain World.
Marsha Chechik, Rick Salay, Torin Viger, Sahar Kokaly, Mona Rahimi
ETAPS'19 invited paper.
Heterogeneous Megamodel Management using Collection Operators.
Rick Salay, Sahar Kokaly, Alessio Di Sandro, Nick Fung, Marsha Chechik
Software and Systems Modeling Journal. 2019
A Survey of Tool-supported Assurance Case Assessment Techniques.
Mike Maksimov, Sahar Kokaly, Marsha Chechik
ACM Computing Surveys. 2019
MMINT-A: A Tool for Automated Change Impact Assessment on Assurance Cases.
Nick Fung, Sahar Kokaly, Alessio Di Sandro, Rick Salay, Marsha Chechik
ASSURE'18 at SAFECOMP'18.
Two Decades of Assurance Case Tools: A Survey.
Mike Maksimov, Nick Fung, Sahar Kokaly, Marsha Chechik
ASSURE'18 at SAFECOMP'18.
User Experience for Model-Driven Engineering: Challenges and Future Directions.
Silvia Abrahão, Francis Bordeleau, Betty Cheng, Sahar Kokaly, Richard F. Paige, Harald Störrle, Jon Whittle
MODELS'17 Foundations Track (28% accept. rate) (slides)
Safety Case Impact Assessment in Automotive Software Systems: An Improved Model-Based Approach.
Sahar Kokaly, Rick Salay, Marsha Chechik, Mark Lawford, Tom Maibaum
SafeComp'17 (33.8% accept. rate) (slides)
Managing Assurance Cases in Model Based Software Systems.
Sahar Kokaly
ICSE'17 Doctoral Symposium (26.9% accept. rate). (slides)
Heterogenous Megamodel Slicing for Model Evolution.
Rick Salay, Sahar Kokaly, Marsha Chechik, Tom Maibaum
ME'16 at MODELS'16 . (slides)
A Model Management Approach for Assurance Case Reuse due to System Evolution.
Sahar Kokaly, Rick Salay, Valentin Cassano, Tom Maibaum, Marsha Chechik
MODELS'16 Foundations Track (23.7% accept. rate) (slides)
Model Management for Regulatory Compliance: a position paper.
Sahar Kokaly, Rick Salay, Mehrdad Sabetzadeh, Marsha Chechik, Tom Maibaum
MiSE'16 at ICSE'16. (slides)
Enriching Megamodel Management with Collection-Based Operators.
Rick Salay, Sahar Kokaly, Alessio Di Sandro, Marsha Chechik
MODELS'15 (26.5% accept. rate) (slides)
Elementary Model Management Patterns.
Sahar Kokaly, Zinovy Diskin, Tom Maibaum, Hamid Gholizadeh
PAME'15 at STAF'15
Analysis of Source-to-Target Model Transformations in QueST.
Hamid Gholizadeh, Zinovy Diskin, Sahar Kokaly, Tom Maibaum
AMT'15 at MODELS'15
MMINT: A Graphical Tool for Interactive Model Management.
Alessio Di Sandro, Rick Salay, Michalis Famelis, Sahar Kokaly, Marsha Chechik
MODELS'15 Demo track (video)
Towards a Structured Workflow Language for Model Management.
Sahar Kokaly
Doctoral Symposium at MODELS'14
Mapping-Aware Megamodeling: Design Patterns and Laws.
Zinovy Diskin, Sahar Kokaly, Tom Maibaum
SLE'13 (34% accept. rate)
Posters
Sahar Kokaly, Zinovy Diskin, Tom Maibaum, Richard Paige
DSM-TP'14
Mapping-Aware Megamodeling: Design Patterns and Laws.
Zinovy Diskin, Sahar Kokaly, Tom Maibaum
McMaster University Industry Open House - March 2014
Tool Demos
Alessio Di Sandro, Nick Fung, Ioanna Stavropoulou, Sahar Kokaly, Rick Salay, Marsha Chechik
MiSE'17
Theses
Sahar Kokaly
PhD Thesis, McMaster University, Apr 2019.
Design and Implementation of a Vibration Analysis Tool.
Sahar (Abughannam) Kokaly
Masters Thesis, McMaster University, Sep 2008.
Professional Activities
- Program Committee member - Practice and Innovation track, MODELS'20 (Montreal, Canada)
- Program Committee member, ECMFA'20 (Bergen, Norway)
- Social Media Chair, MODELS'20 (Montreal, Canada)
- Program Committee member, ISSRE'19 (fast abstracts track) (Berlin, Germany)
- Program Committee member, SASSUR@SafeComp'19 (Turku, Finland)
- Program Committee member, MiSE@ICSE'19 (Montreal, Canada)
- Workshops Selection Committee member, MODELS'18 (Copenhagen, Denmark)
- Tools and Demonstrations Co-Chair, MODELS'18 (Copenhagen, Denmark)
- Organizer and Program Committee chair, MiSE@ICSE'18 (Gothenburg, Sweden)
- Workshops Co-Chair, MODELS'17 (Austin, Texas)
- Invited Panelist, Doctoral Symposium, MODELS'17 (Austin, Texas)
- Judging Committee member, Student Research Competition, MODELS'17 (Austin, Texas)
- Program Committee Member, Grand Challenges in Modeling 2017 Workshop, co-located with the STAF'17 (Marburg, Germany)
- Industry Session Co-Chair, Grand Challenges of Traceability 2017 (Slade, Kentucky)
- Invited talk "Trace Links and Their Use in Automotive Software Safety Assessment", Grand Challenges of Traceability 2017 (Slade, Kentucky)
- Panelist "User Experience for Model Based Software Engineering" Panel. MODELS'16 (Saint Malo, France)
- Advisory Board Member for McMaster University Computing and Software Outreach Program
- Social Media Co-Chair, MODELS'15 (Ottawa, Canada)
- Organizer and Program Committee chair, AMT 2015 at MODELS'15 (Ottawa, Canada)
- Organizer and Program Committee chair, MPM 2015 at MODELS'15 (Ottawa, Canada)
- Organizer and Program Committee chair, MPM 2014 at MODELS'14 (Valencia, Spain)
- Program Committee Member, Doctoral Symposium at MODELS'15 (Ottawa, Canada)
- Reviewer for: Real Time Systems Journal, Journal of Systems and Software (JSS), Empirical Software Engineering Journal, Software & Systems Modeling Journal 2017, Software & Systems Modeling Journal 2018, IEEE Software
- Sub-reviewer for MODELS’14, SLE’15, ASE'16, FSE'17, ASE'18
- Member of Departmental Chair hiring committee, McMaster University, Department of Computing and Software 2006
- Member of MARC Joint Health and Safety Committee 2014-2016
- Student Representative, Graduate Council, Faculty of Engineering. September 2006/2007
- Volunteer for Gr8 Designs for Gr8 Girls program at McMaster University- May 2010 (while at IBM)
Education
2006 - 2008: M.A.Sc. Software Engineering, McMaster University, Canada
2002 - 2006: B.Eng. Software Engineering, McMaster University, Canada
Graduate Level Courses Completed
- CAS 701: Logic and Discrete Mathematics
- CAS 702: Data Structures and Algorithms
- CAS 753: Specifying, Implementing and Verifying Timing Behaviours for Hard Real-Time Systems
- CAS 704: Real-Time Software Systems
- CAS 781: Advanced Topics - Category Theory
- CAS 780: Reading Course: Introduction to Model Driven Engineering
- CAS 764: Advanced Topics in Data Management
- CAS 703: Software Design
Courses Taught
Co-instructors: Dr. Tom Maibaum and Dr. Zinovy Diskin - Winter 2015.