Betty Cheng
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Professor
Biography
Dr. Cheng's research and teaching interests include high assurance computing systems, including safety and security for AI-enabled autonomous systems and vehicles, model-driven engineering (MDE), requirements engineering, formal methods for software engineering, and search-based software engineering. Her work has been funded by NSF, AFRL, ONR, DARPA, ARO, NASA, EPA, and USDA. She collaborates extensively with industry for both her research and project-oriented courses, including Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Flex-n-Gate, Auto Konnect, Continental Automotive, Motorola, and Siemens.
She has received the Michigan State University Distinguished Faculty Award for outstanding scholarship and service to the University, the MSU College of Engineering Withrow Outstanding Scholar Award, and the Withrow Teaching Award.
In 2025, she was awarded the MODELS Conference Lifetime Career Award to recognize long-standing scientific and leadership contributions in the MDE community and to (2) identify role models for the more junior members of the MODELS community.
Education
- Ph.D., Computer Science, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign 1990
- M.S., Computer Science, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign 1987
- B.S., Computer Science, Northwestern University 1985
Research Interests
- Self-Adaptive Autonomous Systems
- Requirements Engineering
- Model-Driven Engineering
- Automated Software Engineering
- Evolutionary Computation and Search-Based Techniques for Software Engineering Problems
Selected Publications
- "Harnessing Digital Evolution," IEEE Computer 2008 (P. McKinley, B.H.C. Cheng, C. Ofria, D. Knoester, B. Beckmann, H. Goldsby), pp. 54-63. (Automatic generation of adaptive software and software models.
- "Research Directions of Requirements Engineering," IEEE ICSE 2007, Future of Software Engineering (co-authored with Jo Atlee), pp. 285-303.
- "Model-Based Development of Dynamically Adaptive Software" (Ji Zhang and Betty H.C. Cheng), in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE06), Shanghai, China, May 2006. (9% acceptance rate) (Received Distinguished Paper Award), pp. 371-380.
MSU Scholar
Google Scholar
Awards
- MSU Distinguished Faculty Award, 2007
- MSU College of Engineering Withrow Distinguished Scholar Award, 2008
- MSU College of Engineering Withrow Teaching Award, 1998
News
Cheng's forward-thinking draws international acclaim
A Michigan State University Engineering professor and her team have received an international honor for their work in the field of computer science and software engineering. What they wrote back in 2012 about systems that keep people safe and healthy, maintain quality, and secure sensitive information continues to drive an international conversation among researchers.
Judd Herzer hired as the new director of MSU Mobility
Michigan State University has named Judd Herzer as the director of MSU Mobility to help amplify and focus the university’s vast research activities in the smart-vehicle landscape. Satish Udpa, University Distinguished Professor in the College of Engineering at MSU and co-founder of MSU Mobility, has been fulfilling the duties of this newly created role in an interim capacity while the university looked for the ideal candidate.
MSU innovations evolve the transportation ecosystem
Michigan State University is home to nearly 50 experts, from a variety of research fields, shaping the future of mobility. That’s because improving transportation — making it safer, smarter and more accessible no matter how people choose to get around — isn’t a matter of solving one problem. It requires embracing complexity and working to evolve an entire ecosystem.
Mobility@ Betty H.C. Cheng
Professor Betty H.C. Cheng, of the MSU Department of Computer Science and Engineering, is developing techniques to address the assurance and trustworthiness of autonomous vehicles. While the future of autonomous vehicles is both promising and exciting, there are many obstacles to overcome for them to safely operate on the roadways.
Sociomobility summer research
Michigan State University will provide opportunities for a diverse group of talented undergraduate students from across the United States to engage in a wide range of research studies related to "sociomobility" as part of a recently funded grant.
November 2017 Media Report
MediaNotes: Spartan Engineers have recently been featured in these new videos
October 2017 Media Report
If you haven't seen the video created to attract Amazon's HQ2 to Detroit/Michigan, take a look: #MoveTheWorld.
$50,000 from ZF
As the automotive industry trends to more autonomous features, the potential for cybersecurity threats in vehicles and between vehicles and smart infrastructures is on the rise. German car parts maker ZF came to the MSU College of Engineering in early October with the goal of developing new methods for easing these future threats from manifesting with the help of a new project with Betty H.C. Cheng, professor of computer science and engineering.