Dr. Kla Tantithamthavorn
Hi there!
I’m Kla (published papers as Chakkrit Tantithamthavorn) (IEEE Senior Member, ex-ARC DECRA Fellow, ex-JSPS Fellow), the Course Director for Bachelor of Software Engineering (Honours), and a Senior Lecturer in Software Engineering in the Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Australia.
Research. My research is focused on developing AI-enabled software development techniques (e.g., AI for Software Defects, AI for Code Review, and AI for Agile) and tools (e.g, AIBugHunter) in order to help developers find defects faster, improve developers’ productivity, make better data-informed decisions, and better improve the quality of software systems. In addition, I’m currently investigating new tools and techniques that enable software engineers to test, safeguard, and monitor the safety and security risks of LLM-based software systems at scale (called LLMSecOps). Key achievements include:
- High-Impact Publications: I have published over 70 peer-reviewed articles in top-tier journals and conferences in software engineering, such as 12xTSE, 11xICSE, 6xTOSEM. My research has attracted over 5,800 Google Scholar citations (h-index 35, i10-index 57, 15 publications with 100+ citations).
- Research Recognition: The excellence of my research is recognized through many awards including Australian Research Council’s Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (ARC DECRA), JSPS Research Fellowship for Young Scientist (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science), ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper at ASE’21 (CORE A*), a SANER'25 Most Influential Paper Award, a World Top 2% Scientist by Stanford University, the Most Impactful Early Career Researcher based on a bibliometric assessment of software engineering themes, scholars and institutions (2013–2020), and NAIST Best Ph.D Student Award.
- Research Innovations and Impact: I’m pioneering an emergering research area of Explainable AI for Software Engineering — an increasingly important research field that has gained a lot of interest in the last 4-5 years. I wrote the XAI4SE online book, which has garnered over 20k+ pageviews and engaged 4.3k users from 83 countries worldwide. I have made substantial contributions to enhance the practicality, explainability, and actionability of automated software development tools (e.g., LineVul, VulExplainer, VulRepair, AIBugHunter). These innovations are widely adopted in both academic and industrial settings (e.g, 1,000+ downloads of AIBugHunter in Microsoft Visual Studio Code). The excellence of my research impact is recognised by the 2024 Dean's Award for Excellence in Research Engagement and Impact.
- Grant Success: I have secured over $2M in competitive funding from prestigious bodies such as CSIRO Next Gen Graduate AI Program (2023-2027, $1.2M), Australian Research Council (DECRA 2020-2023, $600K), and industry partners like Atlassian and Transurban.
- Mentorship and Research Training: I have supervised 13 PhD students (including 10 as the primary supervisor, 3 as the co-supervisor). Six PhD students have successfully graduated. Many of whom have graduated with excellent records and secured positions in academia (e.g., University of Melbourne, University of Sydney) and industry (Atlassian, Macquarie Group).
Education. I am deeply committed to delivering high-quality education that inspires and empowers students to excel. By using a responsive and iterative curriculum design with constructivism, active learning, problem-based learning theories, my contributions include:
- Innovative Teaching Methods: I have pioneered new teaching and assessment strategies (EdStem’s Unit Testing Challenges) being used at FIT2107, FIT5136, and ITO5136, resulting in improved student engagement and learning outcomes. I have received consistently positive feedback from students, with a sustained SETU improvement, from 4.14 (FIT5136 2023 S1) to 4.57 (FIT5136 2024 S1). This also leads to an education peer-reviewed publication at the Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC 2024).
- Curriculum Development and Leadership: With the limited time being a course director of the Bachelor Degree of Software Engineering, I have played a key role in designing and implementing the 2026 BSE course structure to align with SWEBOK 2024, uplifting the quality of the BSE degree to the national and international standards. I also play a significant role in attracting students, by presenting the BSE degree during the Open Day (over 100 attendees) and Engineering Specialisation Day.
Community Leadership. I am currently/had been serving as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), the flagship journal in software engineering, an IEEE Software Guest Editor on MLOps, an IEEE Software Guest Editor on Explainable AI for SE, a Junior PC Co-Chair of Mining Software Repositories (CORE A) 2025 and 2023. I have been invited to be a Keynote Speaker at various events, including the IntenSE workshop (co-located at ICSE’23), a tutorial talk at ASE’21 (CORE A*), a tutorial talk at MSR’19 (CORE A), Lancaster University, Oracle Lab, Atlassian AI Team, Monash eSolution, and Transurban.
news
- April 23, 2024
- I'm am excited to announce that I am a finalist for the Best Cyber Technician or Specialist Under 35, by the 2024 Defence and National Workforce Awards.
- May 31, 2023
- I'm thrilled to announce that the RAISE CSIRO's Next Gen Program Agreement is now fully executed. Student recruitment is underway!
- May 14, 2023
- I will be giving a keynote speaker on "Software Engineering in the Age of Generative AI, Not Yet Explainable!" at ICSE 2023 (the 1st IntenSE workshop), Melbourne, Australia. [Slide]
- May 01, 2023
- With the joint effort from Jurgen Cito, Hadi Hemmati, Satish Chandra, and myself, we are thrilled to release an IEEE Software Special Issue on Explainable AI for SE, including Challenges and Future Directions, and Experts' Interview on XAI for SE.
- April 26, 2023
- Launching a new course on "Quantitative Research Methods" (limited to 50 students, fully registered in 24 hours). Slides are publicly available. Some student testimonials: "Kla is very personable and friendly. He is an effective teacher, and this has been my favourite and most informative MDP training."