Andreas Zeller is a Professor of Computer Science at Saarland University and a faculty member of the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security in Saarbrücken, Germany. He is internationally recognized for foundational contributions to software engineering, particularly in automated debugging, software testing, mining software repositories, and program analysis.
Zeller received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from TU Braunschweig (summa cum laude) and has held academic positions in Braunschweig, Passau, and Saarbrücken, alongside visiting appointments at Microsoft Research, ETH Zürich, and the University of Washington. His research has shaped multiple subfields of software engineering and security testing.
He is an ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, IFIP Fellow, and recipient of numerous major awards, including the ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award, and the ACM SIGSOFT Influential Educator Award. His work has received multiple Test of Time and Impact Awards from leading venues such as ICSE, ISSTA, MSR, and IEEE TSE.
Zeller is also widely known for his educational contributions, including the books Why Programs Fail, The Fuzzing Book, and The Debugging Book, which are used globally in research and teaching. He has supervised more than 20 completed Ph.D. theses and numerous postdoctoral researchers, many of whom now hold prominent academic positions.
Beyond academia, he has co-founded successful technology startups translating research into practice. Zeller is a member of Academia Europaea and has played major leadership roles in top international conferences and journals in software engineering.
2026 Harlan D. Mills Award
“For sustained contributions to software debugging, program analysis, mining software repositories, and automated test generation.”
Learn more about the Harlan D. Mills Award