Mehdi Harandi

Ph.D. University of Manchester, 1979

Research Statement

Professor Harandi's research spans over artificial intelligence and software engineering domains. In AI, his main research activities deal with languages, tools and techniques for knowledge representation, knowledge acquisition and management. This includes logical systems for hybrid reasoning, architectures for agent-based distributed problem solving systems and new generations of expert systems. He is also interested in analogical reasoning and has been studying models and tools for derivational analogy. The goal of these research projects is to find theoretical and practical means for computers to be able to solve symbolic (non-numeric) problems that are usually delegated to very experienced human problem solves, such as medical diagnosis or design of systems for which certain functionalities and constraints are defined.

In the software engineer domain, Harandi has been studying software reuse and automated software development. His efforts in the reuse area has led to methods for representation, retrieval and adaptation of reusable software components. In automated software engineering, he has developed tools and techniques for knowledge-based software design, automated specification acquisition and knowledge-based program understanding.

Currently, he is continuing his research towards a knowledge-based software assistant that can help software developers in all aspects of software development, from requirement engineering to software maintenance and reengineering.