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// Software Engineering & Programming Language
Bach Le

Bach
Le

Senior Lecturer / Associate Professor

SEAPL Lab — School of Computing and Information Systems

I lead the SEAPL (Software Engineering And Programming Languages) lab. My research focuses on automated program repair, formal verification, and AI-assisted software engineering — building tools that make software more correct, secure, and reliable.

Scholar GitHub
50+
Publications
8
Current Members
10+
Years Research
Research Interests
Automated Program Repair Formal Verification LLMs for Code Software Testing Agentic AI Secure Code Generation

Education & Appointments

Academic Appointments
Sept 2024 –
Present
Senior Lecturer (equiv. US Associate Professor)
The University of Melbourne, Australia
Jan 2022 –
Dec 2024
ARC DECRA Fellow
Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award
Fellowship
July 2019 –
Aug 2024
Lecturer (equiv. US Assistant Professor)
The University of Melbourne, Australia
June 2018 –
June 2019
Postdoctoral Researcher
Carnegie Mellon University, Silicon Valley, USA
Topic: Software Security · Supported by DARPA STAC program, ISSTAC project
Advisor: ACM Distinguished Scientist & Assoc. Prof. Corina Pasareanu
Research Positions
Aug 2012 –
Nov 2013
Research Assistant
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Topic: Static software verification using SAT and Separation Logic
Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Wei Ngan Chin
Feb 2012 –
May 2012
Research Intern
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Topic: Static software verification using SAT and Separation Logic
Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Wei Ngan Chin
Aug 2012
Undergraduate Intern
Nagoya University, Japan
Topic: Building a social network application
Host: Prof. Toyohide Watanabe
Education
Jan 2014 –
May 2018
PhD in Computer Science
Singapore Management University, Singapore
Topic: Automatic Software Repair
Supported by LARC–Carnegie Mellon University collaboration program
Advisor: Prof. David Lo
Aug 2015 –
June 2016
PhD Residency Training
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA
Topic: Automatic Software Repair · Under LARC–CMU collaboration program, supported by Singapore Ministry of Education
Host: Assoc. Prof. Claire Le Goues
Aug 2007 –
May 2012
BSc (Hons)
Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Vietnam
Topic: SAT solvers and their application in software verification
Advisors: Assoc. Prof. Huynh Quyet Thang & Assoc. Prof. Wei Ngan Chin
May 2005 –
May 2007
High School — Mathematics-Specialized Class
Phan Boi Chau High School for Gifted Students, Nghe An, Vietnam
🏆 First Prize & Thủ Khoa — Mathematical Olympiads, Nghe An, 2005
🏆 First Prize & Thủ Khoa — Mathematical Olympiads, Nghe An, 2000

Books

// Book chapters
2023 Recent Advances in Symbolic Pathfinder — Book chapter in Automatic Software Verification. Covers JFix and S3 program repair frameworks built atop Symbolic Pathfinder, scaling to programs of 300K+ lines of code.
Pasareanu, Noller, Fromherz, Bach D.X. Le, Visser, Bultan, Eiers
PDFSlidesBibTeX Book Chapter

Publications

// Journals & Conferences

Underlined names are students/postdocs under my supervision. You can also find my articles on my Google Scholar profile.

2026
CodeWiki: Evaluating AI's Ability to Generate Holistic Documentation for Large-Scale Codebases
Hoang-Anh Nguyen, Minh Le-Anh, Bach Le, and Nghi Bui
64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), Findings Track, 2026
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2026
Just-in-Time Bug Classifier: A Step Towards Integrating Automated Program Repair in CI/CD Pipelines
Vinay Kabady, Bach Le, Patanamon Thongtanunam, Christoph Treude
Information and Software Technology (IST), Journal, 2026
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2026
Large Language Models for Computer-Aided Design: A Survey
Licheng Zhang, Bach Le, Naveed Akhtar, Siew-Kei Lam, Tuan Ngo
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), Journal, 2026
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2026
Do Not Treat Code as Natural Language: Implications for Repository-Level Code Generation and Beyond
Minh Le-Anh, Huyen Nguyen, Khanh An Tran, Nam Le Hai, Linh Ngo Van, Nghi Bui, and Bach Le
ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE), 2026
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2026
Memory-Efficient Large Language Models for Program Repair with Semantic-Guided Patch Generation
Cong-Thanh Le, Bach Le, and Toby Murray
48th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), 2026
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2026
Unlocking LLM Repair Capabilities Through Cross-Language Translation and Multi-Agent Refinement
Wenqiang Luo, Jacky Wai Keung, Boyang Yang, Jacques Klein, Tegawende F. Bissyande, Haoye Tian, and Bach Le
48th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), 2026
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2025
Learning From the Best: What Makes Popular Hugging Face Models? A Registered Report
Yinan Wu, Zhou Yang, Bowen Xu, Bo Wang, Bach Le, David Lo
International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME), 2025
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2025
Can LLMs Reason About Program Semantics? A Comprehensive Evaluation of LLMs on Formal Specification Inference
Cong-Thanh Le, Bach Le, Toby Murray
63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), Main Research Track, 2025
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2025
Towards Mining Robust Coq Proof Patterns (Extended Abstract/Vision)
Cezary Kaliszyk, Bach Le, Christine Rizkallah
The 11th International Workshop on Coq for Programming Languages (CoqPL), collocated with POPL, 2025
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2025
When Fine-Tuning LLMs Meets Data Privacy: An Empirical Study of Federated Learning in LLM-Based Program Repair
Wenqiang Luo, Jacky Wai Keung, Bo Yang, He Ye, Claire Le Goues, Tegawende F Bissyande, Haoye Tian, Bach Le
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), Journal, 2025
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2025
Towards Reliable Evaluation of Neural Program Repair with Natural Robustness Testing
Cong-Thanh Le, Thanh-Dat Nguyen, Bach Le, Toby Murray
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), Journal, 2025
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2025
Adversarial Patch Generation for Automated Program Repair
Aziz Alhefdhi, Khanh-Hoa Dam, Cong-Thanh Le, Bach Le, Aditya Ghose
Software Quality Journal (SQJ), 2025
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2025
EnseSmells: Deep ensemble and programming language models for automated code smells detection
Anh Ho, Phuong T. Nguyen, Mai Anh T. Bui, Amleto Di Salle, Bach Le
Journal of Systems and Software (JSS), 2025
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2024
VRDSynth: Synthesizing Programs for Multilingual Visually Rich Document Information Extraction
Thanh-Dat Nguyen, Tung Do-Viet, Hung Nguyen-Duy, Tuan-Hai Luu, Hung Le, Bach Le, Patanamon Thongtanunam
ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA), 2024
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2024
LEGION: Harnessing Pre-trained Language Models for GitHub Topic Recommendations with Distribution-Balance Loss
Yen-Trang Dang, Cong-Thanh Le, Phuc-Thanh Nguyen, Mai-Anh Bui, Phuong T. Nguyen, Bach Le, Quyet-Thang Huynh
28th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE), 2024
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2024
Does Going Beyond Branch Coverage Make Program Repair Tools More Reliable?
Amirfarhad Nilizadeh, Gary T. Leavens, Corina Pasareanu, Xuan-Bach D. Le, David Cok
IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST), Research Track, 2024
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2024
Refining ChatGPT-Generated Code: Characterizing and Mitigating Code Quality Issues
Yue Liu, Cong-Thanh Le, Ratnadira Widyasari, Chakkrit Tantithamthavorn, Li Li, Xuan Bach D. Le, David Lo
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), Journal, 2024
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2024
Leveraging Large Language Model for Automatic Patch Correctness Assessment
Xin Zhou, Bowen Xu, Kisub Kim, DongGyun Han, Hung Nguyen, Thanh Le-Cong, Junda He, Bach Le, and David Lo
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), Journal, 2024
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2023
Are We Ready to Embrace Generative AI for Software Q&A?
Bowen Xu, Thanh-Dat Nguyen, Thanh Le-Cong, Thong Hoang, Jiakun Liu, Kisub Kim, Chen Gong, Changan Niu, Chenyu Wang, Xuan-Bach D. Le, David Lo
38th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE), New Ideas Track, 2023
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2023
Multi-Granularity Detector for Vulnerability Fixes
Truong Giang Nguyen, Thanh Le-Cong, Hong Jin Kang, Ratnadira Widyasari, Chengran Yang, Zhipeng Zhao, Bowen Xu, Jiayuan Zhou, Xin Xia, Ahmed Hassan, Xuan-Bach D. Le, David Lo
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), Journal, 2023
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2023
Invalidator: Automated Patch Correctness Assessment via Semantic and Syntactic Reasoning
Thanh Le-Cong, Duc-Minh Luong, Xuan-Bach D. Le, David Lo, Nhat-Hoa Tran, Quang-Huy Bui, Quyet-Thang Huynh
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), Journal, 2023
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2023
An Efficient Cyclic Entailment Procedure in a Fragment of Separation Logic
Quang-Loc Le, Xuan-Bach D. Le
26th International Conference on Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures (FoSSaCS), Research Track, 2023
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2023
The Future Can't Help Fix The Past: Assessing Program Repair In The Wild
Vinay Kabadi, Dezhen Kong, Siyu Xie, G. Arthar, Lingfeng Bao, Tien-Duy BL, Xuan-Bach D. Le, and David Lo
39th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME), 2023
PDFSlidesBibTeX 🏆 Distinguished Paper
2023
Chronos: Time-Aware Zero-Shot Identification of Libraries from Vulnerability Reports
Y. Lyu, Thanh Le-Cong, Hong Jin Kang, R. Widyasari, Z. Zhao, Xuan-Bach D. Le, Ming Li, David Lo
45th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), Research Track, 2023
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2022
AutoPruner: Transformer-based Call Graph Pruning
Thanh Le-Cong, Hong Jin Kang, Truong Giang Nguyen, S. Haryono, David Lo, Xuan-Bach D. Le, and Quyet-Thang Huynh
21st ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE), Research Track, 2022
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2022
VulCurator: A Vulnerability-Fixing Commit Detector
Truong Giang Nguyen, Thanh Le-Cong, Hong Jin Kang, Xuan-Bach D. Le, David Lo
21st ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE), Demo Track, 2022
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2022
FFL: Fine grained Fault Localization for Student Programs via Syntactic and Semantic Reasoning
Thanh-Dat Nguyen, Thanh Le-Cong, Duc-Minh Luong, Van-Hai Duong, Xuan-Bach D. Le, David Lo and Quyet-Thang Huynh
38th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME), Research Track, 2022
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2022
Test Mimicry to Assess the Exploitability of Library Vulnerabilities
Hong Jin Kang, Truong Giang Nguyen, Xuan-Bach D. Le, David Lo, Corina Pasareanu
31st ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA), Research Track, 2022
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2022
Toward the Analysis of Graph Neural Networks
Thanh-Dat Nguyen, Thanh Le-Cong, ThanhVu H Nguyen, Xuan-Bach D. Le, Quyet-Thang Huynh
44th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), NIER Track, 2022
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2021
REFIXAR: Multi-version Reasoning for Automated Repair of Regression Errors
Xuan-Bach D. Le, Quang-Loc Le
32nd IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE), Research Track, 2021
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2021
More Reliable Test Suites for Dynamic Program Repair by Using Counterexamples
Amirfarhad Nilizadeh, Marlon Calvo, Gary T. Leavens, and Xuan-Bach D. Le
32nd IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE), Research Track, 2021
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2021
Usability and Aesthetics: Better Together for Automated Repair of Web Pages
Cong-Thanh Le, Xuan-Bach D. Le, Quyet-Thang Huynh, Phi Le Nguyen
32nd IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE), Research Track, 2021
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2021
Exploring True Test Overfitting in Dynamic Automated Program Repair using Formal Methods
Amirfarhad Nilizadeh, Gary T. Leavens, Xuan-Bach D. Le, Corina Pasareanu, and David R. Cok
IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST), Research Track, 2021
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2019
SAFFRON: Adaptive Grammar-based Fuzzing for Worst-Case Analysis
Xuan-Bach D. Le, Corina Pasareanu, Rohan Padhye, David Lo, Willem Visser, and Koushik Sen
Java Pathfinder Workshop (JPF), collocated with ASE, 2019
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2019
On Reliability of Patch Correctness Assessment
Xuan-Bach D. Le, Lingfeng Bao, David Lo, Xia Xin, Shanping Li, and Corina Pasareanu
41st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), Research Track, 2019
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2019
Symbolic Pathfinder for SV-COMP
Yannic Noller, Corina Pasareanu, Aymeric Fromherz, Xuan-Bach D. Le, and Willem Visser
Competition on Software Verification (SV-COMP), held at TACAS, 2019
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2019
Smart Contract Development: Challenges and Opportunities
Z. Weiqin, L. David, S. K. Pavneet, Xuan-Bach D. Le, F. Yang, Zhenyu Chen, and Baowen Xu
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), Journal, 2019
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2018
Overfitting in Semantics-Based Automated Program Repair
Xuan-Bach D. Le, Ferdian Thung, David Lo, Claire Le Goues
Empirical Software Engineering Journal (EmSE), Invited, Journal First Track at ICSE, 2018
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2017
S3: Syntax- and Semantic-Guided Repair Synthesis via Programming by Examples
Xuan Bach D. Le, Duc Hiep Chu, David Lo, Claire Le Goues, and Willem Visser
11th Joint Meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE), Research Track, 2017
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2017
JFIX: Semantics-Based Repair of Java Programs via Symbolic PathFinder
Xuan Bach D. Le, Duc Hiep Chu, David Lo, Claire Le Goues, and Willem Visser
26th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA), Demonstrations Track, 2017
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2017
XSearch: A Domain-Specific Cross-Language Relevant Question Retrieval Tool
Bowen Xu, Zhenchang Xing, Xin Xia, David Lo and Xuan-Bach D. Le
11th Joint Meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE), Demonstrations Track, 2017
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2016
History Driven Program Repair
Xuan-Bach D. Le, David Lo, Claire Le Goues
23rd IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering (SANER), Research Track, 2016
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2016
Enhancing Automated Program Repair with Deductive Verification
Xuan Bach D. Le, Quang Loc Le, David Lo, Claire Le Goues
32nd IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME), ERA Track, 2016
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2016
Empirical Study on Synthesis Engines for Semantics-based Program Repair
Xuan Bach D. Le, David Lo, Claire Le Goues
32nd IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME), ERA Track, 2016
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2016
Recommending Code Changes for Automatic Backporting of Linux Device Drivers
Ferdian Thung, Xuan-Bach D. Le, David Lo, Julia L. Lawall
32nd IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME), Research Track, 2016
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2015
Should Fixing These Failures be Delegated to Automated Program Repair?
Xuan-Bach D. Le, Tien-Duy B. Le, David Lo
26th IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE), Research Track, 2015
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2015
Synergizing Specification Miners through Model Fissions and Fusions
Tien-Duy B. Le, Xuan-Bach D. Le, David Lo, and Ivan Beschastnikh
30th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE), Research Track, 2015
PDFSlidesBibTeX
2015
Active Semi-supervised Defect Categorization
Ferdian Thung, Xuan-Bach D. Le, David Lo
23rd IEEE International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC), Research Track, 2015
PDFSlidesBibTeX

Team

// SEAPLers — (Software Engineering And Programming Language)
Current PhD Students
VK
Vinay Kabady
PhD Student (part-time) · 2020–2026
Automated Program Repair
AH
Anh Ho
PhD Student · 2024–now
Automated Program Repair
LZ
Licheng Zhang
PhD Student · 2025–now
Computer Vision for SE & Design
HH
Hieu Huynh
PhD Student · 2024–now
Agentic AI
DN
Dung Nguyen
PhD Student · 2025–now
Secure Code Generation
Research Assistants & AI Residents
PZ
Pengtao Zhao
Research Assistant · 2025–now
Automated Program Repair
HN
Hoang-Anh Nguyen
AI Resident @ FPT Software · 2025–now
AI for Software Engineering
MN
Minh Le-Anh
AI Resident @ FPT Software · 2025–now
AI for Software Engineering
Alumni
CL
Cong-Thanh Le
PhD 2023–2026
Trustworthy APR → Asst. Professor, SUTD, Singapore
DN2
Dat Nguyen
PhD 2022–2025
Neuro-symbolic reasoning & neural network analysis → Postdoc, Harvard University
HT
Haoye Tian
Postdoc 2024–2025
Automated Program Repair → Asst. Professor, Aalto University, Finland

Contact

Get in touch
bach.le@unimelb.edu.au
Best for research inquiries
School of Computing and Information Systems
The University of Melbourne
Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia
Google Scholar Profile
Prospective students

I welcome applications from motivated PhD students interested in software engineering, automated program repair, formal verification, and AI for code. If you are interested in joining the SEAPL lab, please reach out with your CV and a brief research statement.