Profile

I am an associate professor at Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), Japan, and a JST FOREST Researcher. I worked for Hitachi Ltd. as a full-time software engineer for two years before spending three years as a research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. I received my Ph.D. degree in engineering from Wakayama University in 2020. After this, I was a post-doc under SENSOR (SENsible SOftware Refactoring) project led by Yasutaka Kamei and Gabriele Bavota.

My research interests include empirical software engineering, specifically mining software repositories. I focus on utilizing data generated from continuous integration and DevOps to improve software quality and development efficiency. In recent years, I have been actively working on Just-In-Time defect prediction and automatic refactoring using trace logs obtained through dynamic analysis during test execution. I also collaborate with many researchers from universities in Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Thailand on numerous international joint research projects. Ph.D. in Engineering.

Biography

Apr. 2015 - Mar. 2017: Full-time Software Developer at Hitachi, Ltd.
Apr. 2017 - Mar. 2020: Doctoral Student at Wakayama University
Apr. 2017 - Mar. 2020: JSPS Research Fellow (DC1)
Apr. 2019 - Sep. 2019: Visiting Researcher at Polytechnique MontrΓ©al
Apr. 2020 - Mar. 2022: Research Assistant Professor at Kyushu University
Nov. 2021 - Feb. 2022: Visiting Researcher at UniversitΓ  della Svizzera italiana
Apr. 2022 - Mar. 2025: Assistant Professor at Nara Institute of Science and Technology
Oct. 2022 - Mar. 2026: JST PRESTO Researcher (concurrent)
Oct. 2022 - Nov. 2022: Visiting Researcher at Radboud University
Sep. 2023 - Oct. 2023: Visiting Researcher at Radboud University
Apr. 2025 - Present: Associate Professor at Nara Institute of Science and Technology
Aug. 2026 - Present: JST FOREST Researcher (concurrent)

Selected Publications

Conference rankings are based on CORE Rankings. Journal rankings are based on SCImago Journal Rankings (SJR).

Large-Scale Empirical Analysis of Continuous Fuzzing TSE [Q1]
T Shirai, O Nourry, Y Kashiwa, K Fujiwara, Y Kamei, H Iida
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2026.
πŸ“„ PDF
Agent READMEs: An Empirical Study of Context Files for Agentic Coding TOSEM [Q1]
W Chatlatanagulchai, H Li, Y Kashiwa, B Reid, K Thonglek, P Leelaprute, A Rungsawang, B Manaskasemsak, B Adams, A E Hassan, H Iida
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, 2026.
πŸ“„ PDF
On the Use of Agentic Coding: An Empirical Study of Pull Requests on GitHub TOSEM [Q1]
M Watanabe, H Li, Y Kashiwa, B Reid, H Iida, A E Hassan
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, 2026.
πŸ“„ PDF
Understanding Self-Admitted Technical Debt in Test Code TOSEM [Q1]
I Nakamura, Y Kashiwa, B Lin, H Iida
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, 2026.
πŸ“„ PDF
Is Self-Admitted Technical Debt Tested? ESEM [A]
S Yoshimoto, K Horikawa, D Feitosa, Y Kashiwa, H Iida
ESEM 2026.
πŸ“„ PDF
Test Alert Snooze: An Empirical Study of Consecutive Test Failures on CI ESEM [A]
A Shirakawa, T Shirai, Y Kashiwa, M Kondo, Y Kamei, H Iida
ESEM 2026.
πŸ“„ PDF
An Empirical Study of Policy as Code MSR [A]
R Opdebeeck, M Alfadel, A Rahman, Y Kashiwa, J F Ferreira, R G Kula, C De Roover
MSR 2026.
πŸ“„ PDF
Does Programming Language Matter? An Empirical Study of Fuzzing Bug Detection MSR [A]
T Shirai, O Nourry, Y Kashiwa, K Fujiwara, H Iida
MSR 2026.
πŸ“„ PDF
My Fuzzers Won't Build: An Empirical Study of Fuzzing Build Failures TOSEM [Q1]
O Nourry, Y Kashiwa, W Shang, H Shu, Y Kamei
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, 2024.
πŸ“„ PDF
Developer-Applied Accelerations in Continuous Integration ASE [A*]
M Yin, Y Kashiwa, K Gallaba, M Alfadel, Y Kamei, S McIntosh
ASE 2024.
πŸ“„ PDF
Understanding the Characteristics and the Role of Visual Issue Reports EMSE [Q1]
H Kuramoto, D Wang, M Kondo, Y Kashiwa, Y Kamei, N Ubayashi
Empirical Software Engineering, 2024.
πŸ“„ PDF
The Human Side of Fuzzing TOSEM [Q1]
O Nourry, Y Kashiwa, B Lin, G Bavota, M Lanza, Y Kamei
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, 2023.
πŸ“„ PDF
An Empirical Study on Self-admitted Technical Debt in Modern Code Review IST [Q1]
Y Kashiwa, R Nishikawa, Y Kamei, M Kondo, E Shihab, R Sato, N Ubayashi
Information and Software Technology, 2022.
πŸ“„ PDF
An Empirical Study of Issue-Link Algorithms EMSE [Q1]
M Kondo, Y Kashiwa, Y Kamei, O Mizuno
Empirical Software Engineering, 2022.
πŸ“„ PDF
Does Refactoring Break Tests and to What Extent? ICSME [A]
Y Kashiwa, K Shimizu, B Lin, G Bavota, M Lanza, Y Kamei, N Ubayashi
ICSME 2021.
πŸ“„ PDF
Does Shortening the Release Cycle Affect Refactoring Activities IST [Q1]
O Nourry, Y Kashiwa, Y Kamei, N Ubayashi
Information and Software Technology, 2021.
πŸ“„ PDF

Other publications: https://github.com/Yutaro-Kashiwa/papers

Awards

Personal Awards
2026: Distinguished Mining Challenge Paper Award, MSR 2026
2025: Research Encouragement Award, Software Engineering Symposium (SES) 2025
2023: Research Encouragement Award, IEICE Special Interest Groups on Software Science
2022: IEEE CS Kansai Chapter Young Author Award 2022
2022: Research Encouragement Award, IEICE Special Interest Groups on Software Science
2021: Specially Selected Paper Award, Transactions of IPSJ
2016: IPSJ Outstanding Paper Award, Transactions of IPSJ
2016: IPSJ Yamashita SIG Research Award
2015: Research Encouragement Award, Software Symposium 2015
2015: President's Award, Wakayama University
2015: Student Research Award, IPSJ SIGSE
2015: Specially Selected Paper Award, Transactions of IPSJ
2014: Best Paper Award, Software Engineering Symposium 2014
2013: Interactive Award, Software Engineering Symposium 2013
Plus 4 internal university awards
Student Awards (as Supervisor)
2025: FOSE2025 Best Poster Presentation Award (Recipient: Kosuke Shimizu)
2025: SES 2025 Best International Poster Award (Recipient: Kosei Horikawa)
2023: IPSJ Kyushu-branch Young Research Seminar 2023 Encouraged Award (Recipient: Issei Morita)
2023: FOSE2023 Poster and Demo Award (Recipient: Miki Yonekura)
2023: FOSE2023 Poster and Demo Award (Recipient: Miku Watanabe)
2022: IEEE CS Japan Chapter FOSE Young Researcher Award (Recipient: Yuga Matsuda)

Grants

Principal Investigator
2026-2034: JST FOREST
Project: "Quality Assurance Infrastructure for AI-Driven Software Development"
Direct Cost: 49,000,000 JPY, Indirect Cost: 14,700,000 JPY
2026-2028: JSPS KAKENHI Challenging Research (Exploratory)
Project: "Creating Continuous Usability Testing Infrastructure for Immediate Detection of Usability Degradation"
Direct Cost: 5,000,000 JPY, Indirect Cost: 1,500,000 JPY
2024-2028: JSPS KAKENHI (B)
Project: "Developing Technique for Bug Localization with Incomplete System Logs: Challenge for Automatic System Recovery"
Direct Cost: 14,300,000 JPY, Indirect Cost: 4,290,000 JPY
Co-Investigator
2026-2030: JSPS KAKENHI (A) (PI: Yasutaka Kamei)
Project: "Software Engineering Neurons: Understanding and Applying SE Knowledge in LLM Intermediate Representations"
Direct Cost: 32,100,000 JPY, Indirect Cost: 9,630,000 JPY
2026-2029: JSPS KAKENHI (B) (PI: Masao Ohira)
Project: "Understanding and Preventing Model Collapse of Generative AI in System Development"
Direct Cost: 14,100,000 JPY, Indirect Cost: 4,230,000 JPY
2026-2028: JST PRESTO Fusion Research (PI: Shinobu Miwa)
Project: "Automatic Generation of Parallel Secure Computation Code Using AI"
Direct Cost: 60,000,000 JPY, Indirect Cost: 18,000,000 JPY
2025-2029: JSPS KAKENHI (B) (PI: Masanari Kondo)
Project: "Proposal for Rational Decision Mining to Support Understanding of Existing Software Code"
Direct Cost: 14,500,000 JPY, Indirect Cost: 4,350,000 JPY
2024-2028: JST ASPIRE (PI: Yasutaka Kamei)
Project: "International Brain Circulation Initiative for Context-Aware AI in Software Development"
Direct Cost: 69,230,000 JPY, Indirect Cost: 20,770,000 JPY
2023-2029: JST CREST (PI: Toshiaki Aoki)
Project: "Formal Methods and Verification Tools for Next-Generation Automotive Platform Systems"
Principal Investigator
2022-2026: JST PRESTO
Project: "Developing Technique for Automatic Detection of Anomalous Program Behavior: Machine-Enabled Secure Automatic Testing"
Direct Cost: 40,000,000 JPY, Indirect Cost: 12,000,000 JPY
2021-2024: JSPS KAKENHI (Young Researcher)
Project: "Developing Technique for Predicting Test Suites Broken by Refactoring"
Direct Cost: 3,500,000 JPY, Indirect Cost: 1,050,000 JPY
2017-2020: JSPS KAKENHI (JSPS Fellows)
Project: "Development of a Detection Method for High Impact Bugs"
Direct Cost: 2,800,000 JPY
2018-2019: JSPS Overseas Challenge Program
Project: "Development of a Detection Method for High Impact Bugs"
Direct Cost: 1,400,000 JPY
Co-Investigator
2025-2026: JST AIP Acceleration (PI: Norihiro Yoshida)
Project: "Explainable Automatic Bug Fixing Based on Software Analysis Technology"
Direct Cost: 10,000,000 JPY, Indirect Cost: 3,000,000 JPY

Research Projects

Agentic Software Engineering Empirical analysis and quality improvement of autonomous software development by AI agents
Context FilesπŸ“„ TOSEM Pull RequestsπŸ“„ TOSEM Code QualityπŸ“„ MSRπŸ“„ MSRπŸ“„ EASE Test GenerationπŸ“„ MSR
AI-assisted Software Development Development support using ML/LLM (defect prediction, code completion, review automation)
JIT Defect PredictionπŸ“„ SANER Code CompletionπŸ“„ SANER Code ReviewπŸ“„ ICSMEπŸ“„ EASE Bug TriageπŸ“„ IEICE
DevOps & Testing CI/CD pipeline optimization, fuzzing, and test automation research
Build AccelerationπŸ“„ ASE Continuous FuzzingπŸ“„ TSEπŸ“„ TOSEMπŸ“„ TOSEMπŸ“„ MSR Test MaintenanceπŸ“„ ICSMEπŸ“„ ICSMEπŸ“„ ESEM Cloud & ContainerπŸ“„ APSECπŸ“„ SCAMπŸ“„ SANER Dependency & ConfigπŸ“„ MSRπŸ“„ MSR
Technical Debt & Refactoring Detection and management of technical debt, and analysis of refactoring impact on tests
RefactoringπŸ“„ ISTπŸ“„ ICSMEπŸ“„ SCAMπŸ“„ SANER SATDπŸ“„ ISTπŸ“„ TOSEMπŸ“„ ESEMπŸ“„ ICPC
Bug Analysis Analysis of bug reports, prediction of high-impact bugs, and issue-commit linking
Visual IssuesπŸ“„ EMSEπŸ“„ ICPC High Impact BugsπŸ“„ ICSMEπŸ“„ MSR Issue LinkingπŸ“„ EMSE

Qualifications

Database Specialist (Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan)
Applied Information Technology Engineer (Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan)

Contact

yutaro.kashiwa [at] is.naist.jp

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