Publications

About

Making software and AI dependable.

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the TAU Lab at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), led by Prof. Paolo Tonella.

I completed my Ph.D. at KAIST under the supervision of Prof. Shin Yoo. My research bridges software engineering and artificial intelligence, with a focus on testing, reliability, robustness, interpretability, and assurance for learning-enabled systems.

Software testing
AI assurance
Learning-enabled systems
Robustness & interpretability

Updates

Latest news

2026

Jul

Our paper “When Knowledge Changes: Metamorphic Testing of RAG Systems with Mutations” has been accepted for publication in ASE 2026.

Apr

Our paper “Testing Retrieval-Augmented Generation Systems with Chunk Coverage” has been accepted for publication in ISSTA 2026.

Apr

I joined the organizing committee for ICST 2027 as a Posters Track Co-chair.

Feb

I joined the PC of ICSE 2027 and Mutation 2026.

Jan

I joined the organizing committee for SSBSE 2026 as a Publicity Co-chair.

Jan

I joined the PC of ASE 2026.

2025

Oct

Our paper “Revisiting “Revisiting Neuron Coverage for DNN Testing: A Layer-Wise and Distribution-Aware Criterion”: A Critical Review and Implications on DNN Coverage Testing” has been accepted for publication in ICSE 2026.

Sep

The paper “A Taxonomy of System-Level Attacks on Deep Learning Models in Autonomous Vehicles” has been accepted for publication in TOSEM. This is the second paper of mine with my PhD student, Masoud Jamshidiyan Tehrani.

Sep

Our paper, “Evaluating and Improving the Robustness of Security Attack Detectors Generated by LLMs” has been accepted for publication in Empirical Software Engineering. This marks the first paper from my PhD student, Samuele Pasini.

Sep

I serve as a co-chair of the Testing Tools and Data Showcase Track at ICST 2026.

Jul

I am organising SBFT 2026 and DeepTest 2026, both of which will be co-located with ICSE 2026.

Apr

The paper “An Empirical Study of Fault Localisation Techniques for Deep Neural Networks” has been accepted for publication in Empirical Software Engineering.

Mar

The paper “PCLA: A Framework for Testing Autonomous Agents in the CARLA Simulator” has been accepted for FSE 2025 (Demonstrations Track).

Feb

I joined the program committee of ASE 2025 (NIER Track, Student Research Competition Track) and DeMeSSAI 2025.

2024

Sep

I joined the program committee of SBFT 2025 and Mutation 2025.

Aug

I am organising DeepTest 2025, co-located with ICSE 2025.

Apr

I joined the program committee of ASE 2024 (Demonstrations Track, NIER Track).

Apr

I joined the program committee of ISSTA 2025 (Research Track).

Apr

I joined the TOSEM Board of Distinguished Reviewers.

2023

Sep

I’m thrilled to share that I’m beginning a postdoc at USI Lugano under the guidance of Prof. Paolo Tonella!

Apr

Our paper wins a best paper award at Mutation 2023.

2022

Dec

In collaboration with TAU Lab, our paper “Repairing DNN Architecture: Are We There Yet?” has been accepted to publication at ICST 2023 (Research Papers Track).

Dec

I’m delighted to announce that I have successfully defended my Ph.D. thesis!

Aug

I’ll visit Prof. Paolo Tonella at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) for two months.

Jul

I successfully completed my dissertation proposal.

Recent work

Latest publications

View all

ASE · 2026
When Knowledge Changes: Metamorphic Testing of RAG Systems with Mutations

J. Kim, S. Pasini and P. Tonella

Proceedings of the 41st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering
TRUST · 2026
Dynamic Deception: When Pedestrians Team Up to Fool Autonomous Cars

M. J. Tehrani, M. Gabriel, J. Kim and P. Tonella

Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Trustworthy and Responsible aUtonomous SysTems
ISSTA · 2026
Testing Retrieval-Augmented Generation Systems with Chunk Coverage

J. Kim, S. Pasini and P. Tonella

Proceedings of the 35th ACM International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis

Research output

For an up-to-date list of publications and citation counts, visit my Google Scholar profile. Unless otherwise specified, publications appeared in the main research track.

Journals 7 papers

JSS · 2026
Cross-Site Scripting Adversarial Attacks Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning: Evaluation and Extension Study

S. Pasini, G. Maragliano, J. Kim and P. Tonella

Journal of Systems and Software
TOSEM · 2025
A Taxonomy of System-Level Attacks on Deep Learning Models in Autonomous Vehicles

M. J. Tehrani, J. Kim, R. Z. Foulefack, A. Marchetto and P. Tonella

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology

Presented at the journal-first track of ICSE 2026
EMSE · 2025
Evaluating and Improving the Robustness of Security Attack Detectors Generated by LLMs

S. Pasini, J. Kim, T. Aiello, R. Lozoya, A. Sabetta and P. Tonella

Empirical Software Engineering

Presented at the journal-first track of ICSE 2026
EMSE · 2025
An Empirical Study of Fault Localisation Techniques for Deep Neural Networks

N. Humbatova, J. Kim, G. Jahangirova, S. Yoo and P. Tonella

Empirical Software Engineering

Presented at the journal-first track of ICST 2026
IST · 2023
Learning Test-Mutant Relationship for Accurate Fault Localisation

J. Kim, G. An, R. Feldt and S. Yoo

Information and Software Technology
TOSEM · 2023
Evaluating Surprise Adequacy for Deep Learning System Testing

J. Kim, R. Feldt and S. Yoo

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology
TOSEM · 2022
Predictive Mutation Analysis via Natural Language Channel in Source Code

J. Kim, J. Jeon, S. Hong and S. Yoo

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology

Presented at the journal-first track of ICSE 2023

Conferences & workshops 17 papers

TRUST · 2026
Dynamic Deception: When Pedestrians Team Up to Fool Autonomous Cars

M. J. Tehrani, M. Gabriel, J. Kim and P. Tonella

Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Trustworthy and Responsible aUtonomous SysTems
ASE · 2026
When Knowledge Changes: Metamorphic Testing of RAG Systems with Mutations

J. Kim, S. Pasini and P. Tonella

Proceedings of the 41st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering
ISSTA · 2026
Testing Retrieval-Augmented Generation Systems with Chunk Coverage

J. Kim, S. Pasini and P. Tonella

Proceedings of the 35th ACM International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis
ICSE · 2026
Revisiting "Revisiting Neuron Coverage for DNN Testing: A Layer-Wise and Distribution-Aware Criterion": A Critical Review and Implications on DNN Coverage Testing

J. Kim, N. Humbatova, G. Jahangirova, S. Yoo and P. Tonella

Proceedings of the 48th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering
FSE Demo · 2025
PCLA: A Framework for Testing Autonomous Agents in the CARLA Simulator

M. Tehrani, J. Kim and P. Tonella

Proceedings of ACM on the Foundations of Software Engineering
Mutation · 2023
The Inversive Relationship Between Bugs and Patches: An Empirical Study

J. Kim, J. Park and S. Yoo

Proceedings of the 18th International Workshop on Mutation Analysis

Best Paper Award
ICST · 2023
Repairing DNN Architecture: Are We There Yet?

J. Kim, N. Humbatova, G. Jahangirova, P. Tonella and S. Yoo

Proceedings of the 16th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation
ICST Industry · 2022
Repairing Fragile GUI Test Cases Using Word and Layout Embedding

J. Yoon, S. Chung, K. Shin, J. Kim, S. Hong and S. Yoo

Proceedings of the 15th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation
ISSRE · 2021
Ahead of Time Mutation Based Fault Localisation Using Statistical Inference

J. Kim, G. An, R. Feldt and S. Yoo

Proceedings of the 32nd International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering

Invited for a special issue of IST Journal
FSE Industry · 2020
Reducing DNN Labelling Cost Using Surprise Adequacy: An Industrial Case Study for Autonomous Driving

J. Kim, J. Ju, R. Feldt and S. Yoo

Proceedings of ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering
ICSE · 2019
Guiding Deep Learning System Testing Using Surprise Adequacy

J. Kim, R. Feldt and S. Yoo

Proceedings of the 41st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering
SSBSE · 2018
Learning Without Peeking: Secure Multi-Party Computation Genetic Programming

J. Kim, M. G. Epitropakis and S. Yoo

Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Search Based Software Engineering
L@S · 2018
Elicast: Embedding Interactive Exercises in Instructional Programming Screencasts

J. Park, Y. H. Park, J. Kim, J. Cha, S. Kim and A. Oh

Proceedings of the Fifth Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale
GI · 2018
Comparing Line and AST Granularity Level for Program Repair Using PyGGI

G. An, J. Kim and S. Yoo

Proceedings of the 4th Genetic Improvement Workshop
KCSE · 2017

PyGGI: Python General framework for Genetic Improvement

G. An, J. Kim, S. Lee and S. Yoo

Proceedings of Korea Software Congress
SSBSE Short Papers · 2017
GPGPGPU: Evaluation of Parallelisation of Genetic Programming Using GPGPU

J. Kim, J. Kim and S. Yoo

Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Search Based Software Engineering
CHI · 2016
BeUpright: Posture Correction Using Relational Norm Intervention

J. Shin, B. Kang, T. Park, J. Huh, J. Kim and J. Song

Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Thesis 1 dissertation

Ph.D. · 2023

Exploiting Mutant’s Relationship with Code, Faults, and Patches for Higher Efficacy of Mutation Analysis

J. Kim

KAIST, February 2023

Organizing & reviewing

Community service

Organizing

3 years

2027 ICST · Posters Track Co-chair
2026 ICST · Testing Tools and Data Showcase Track Co-chair SSBSE · Publicity Co-chair SBFT & DeepTest · Workshop Co-organizer
2025 DeepTest · Workshop Co-organizer

Program committees

8 years

2027 ICSE · Research Track
2026 ASE · Research Track ESEM · Research Track ICST · Education Track Mutation · RASE
2025 ISSTA · Research Track ASE · NIER & Student Research Competition SSBSE, SBFT, Mutation & DeMeSSAI
2024 SCAM (Research), ICSE (Demonstrations), ASE (Demonstrations & NIER), DeepTest, Mutation
2023 Mutation, ASE (NIER), ICSME (Artifact Evaluation)
2022 Mutation, ICST (Poster), ICSME (Registered Reports & Artifact Evaluation)
2021 Mutation, ICSME (Artifact Evaluation)
2020 Mutation

Reviewing

7 years

2026 Reviewer · EMSE
2025 TOSEM Board of Distinguished Reviewers Reviewer · TSE, TOSEM, EMSE, STVR & IEEE Computer
2024 TOSEM Board of Distinguished Reviewers Reviewer · TSE, TOSEM, EMSE, JSEP & JSS
2023 Reviewer · TSE, TOSEM, EMSE & JSEP
2022 Reviewer · TOSEM, JSEP
2021 Reviewer · TOSEM, STVR
2020 Reviewer · IST, JSS