William E. Howden

Professor, Computer Science & Engineering

Software testing and analysis, error modeling and prevention, software design, and embedded systems.

Professor Howden has worked in the area of program testing and analysis since 1975, on data-oriented, communication and, most recently, wireless communication systems. Howden's work in the area includes material on fault-based testing methods, functional testing, and the use of comments in systematic program analysis. His recent work includes the development of analysis tools for real time and Ada programs. Howden’s book (see bio) emphasized the use of broad spectrum functional testing, in which tests are used that exercise each of the functional components of a program, including those from specifications and design. Howden has also done an analysis of statistical testing methods, and published work on models which describe how methods combine to produce a cumulative improvement in fault detection and reliability prediction. He has published in areas including: program analysis and operational integrity; statistical program testing; functional testing; symbolic testing; test data generation; static analysis; empirical evaluation of testing and analysis methods; theory of testing; mutation testing; software design; and software development processes. Software confidence--a numerical measure of confidence that specified properties of a program will be true when the program is executed--is one current project where Howden is developing methods to increase the levels of confidence that can be established with a fixed amount of testing resources. Another current research project involves the application of model-based operational integrity analysis to object-oriented and embedded systems.

Capsule Bio:
William Howden joined the UCSD faculty in 1974 He received his Ph.D. in 1973 from UCI. He is the co-author of a best selling tutorial on testing, of "Functional Program Testing and Analysis" (McGraw-Hill, 1986), and of numerous papers on testing and software validation.