Safwat Hassan

Assistant Professor

Email: safwat.hassan@utoronto.ca

Office: BL 710

Website: https://safwathassan.com

Safwat Hassan completed his PhD at Queen’s University in the Software Analysis and Intelligence Lab (SAIL). Before starting his Ph.D., he worked as a software engineer for ten years at the Egyptian Space Agency, Hewlett Packard (HP), Vodafone Germany, and Etisalat. During this period, he worked on different large-scale systems (including web-based and embedded systems), holding various project roles (design service, customer support, and R&D) across multiple domains, including telecommunications and aerospace.

Research

Professor Hassan is currently studying mobile apps by analyzing the data from different mobile app stores (e.g., the Google Play Store). His research includes analytics of review platforms, release engineering, and user-developer interactions. His research aims to provide techniques and frameworks that improve user experience and the quality of published apps in app stores.

https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=K73r9zUAAAAJ&hl=en
Specialization

Using Generative and Explainable Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Information Systems Maintenance and Design, Large Language Models (LLMs), Information Systems Analytics, Software Performance, Mining Software Repositories (MSR), DevOps, and Requirements Engineering
Recent Publications
- Nour Dekhil, Yasin Mamatjan, Safwat Hassan, and Mira Salih, “A Novel Recommender System for Stroke Risk Stratification”. Proceedings of the 19th IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (CIBCB), 2022.
- Aidan Polese, Yuan Tian, and Safwat Hassan, “Adoption of Third-party Libraries in Mobile Apps: A Case Study on Open-source Android Applications”. Proceedings of the 9th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems (MOBILESoft), 2022.
- Islem Saidani, Ali Ouni, Md Ahasanuzzaman, Safwat Hassan, Mohamed W. Mkaouer, and Ahmed E. Hassan, “Tracking Bad Updates in Mobile Apps: A Search-based Approach”. Empirical Software Engineering Journal (EMSE), pp. 1–43, (2022). (Impact Factor 5.94).
- Safwat Hassan, Heng Li, and Ahmed E. Hassan, “On the Importance of Performing App Analysis Within Peer Groups”, Proceedings of the 29th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER), 2022.
- Aidan Z.H. Yang, Safwat Hassan, Ying Zou, and Ahmed E. Hassan, “An Empirical Study on Release Notes Patterns of Popular Apps in the Google Play Store”. Empirical Software Engineering Journal (EMSE), pp. 1–41, (2021). (Impact Factor 5.94).
- Maram Assi, Safwat Hassan, Yuan Tian, and Ying Zou, “FeatCompare: Feature Comparison for Competing Mobile Apps Leveraging User Reviews”. Empirical Software Engineering Journal (EMSE), pp. 1–43, (2021). (Impact Factor 5.94).
- Qiuyuan Chen, Chunyang Chen, Safwat Hassan, Zhenchang Xing, Xin Xia, Ahmed E. Hassan, “How should I Improve the UI of My App: A Study of User Reviews of Popular Apps in the Google Play Store”. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), pp. 1–37, (2021). (Impact Factor 3.43).
- Guoliang Zhao, Safwat Hassan, Ying Zou, Derek Truong, Toby Corbin, “Predicting Performance Anomalies in Software Systems at Run-time”. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), pp. 1–32, (2020). (Impact Factor 3.43).
- Omar El Zarif, Safwat Hassan, Ying Zou, Calisto Zuzarte, Vincent Corvinelli, Mohammed Al Hamid, “PredCache: A Predictive Caching Method in Database Systems”. International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering (CASCON), 2020.
- Osama Ehsan, Safwat Hassan, Mariam El Mezouar, and Ying Zou, “An Empirical Study of Developer Discussions in the Gitter Platform”. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), pp. 1–38, (2020). (Impact Factor 3.43).
- Md Ahasanuzzaman, Safwat Hassan, and Ahmed E. Hassan, “Studying Ad Library Integration Practices of Top Free-to-Download Apps”. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), pp. 1–16, (2020). (Impact Factor 6.52).
- Omar El Zarif, Daniel Alencar da Costa, Safwat Hassan, and Ying Zou, “On the Relationship between User Churn and Software Issues”. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR), 2020.
- Md Ahasanuzzaman, Safwat Hassan, Cor-Paul Bezemer, and Ahmed E. Hassan, “A Longitudinal Study of Popular Ad Libraries in the Google Play Store”. Empirical Software Engineering Journal (EMSE), pp. 824–858, (2020). (Impact Factor 5.94).
Memberships & Awards

– The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant.

– Mitacs Globalink
Teaching & Supervision

– INF1005/INF1006: “Adopting DevOps for Large-Scale Information Systems”

– INF2177: “Information Management and Systems”

– INF1341: “System Analysis and Innovation”

Safwat Hassan

Safwat Hassan

Research

Specialization

Recent Publications

Memberships & Awards

Teaching & Supervision