Contact Information
140 Governors Drive
Amherst, MA 01003-9264
USA
Email: hconboy@cs.umass.edu
Office: 314 Computer Science Building
Teaching
- Spring 2023) CS320, Section 4: Introduction to Software Engineering
- Spring 2023) CS 520: Theory and Practice of Software Engineering
- Fall 2022) CS520: Theory and Practice of Software Engineering
- Spring 2022) CS 520: Theory and Practice of Software Engineering
- Fall 2021) CS 520: Theory and Practice of Software Engineering
- Spring 2021) CS 520: Theory and Practice of Software Engineering
- Fall 2020) CS 520: Theory and Practice of Software Engineering
- Spring 2020) CS 520: Theory and Practice of Software Engineering
Research
I work in the Laboratory for Software Engineering Research (LASER). My research interests are in the areas of requirements engineering, static analysis, and real-time monitoring/guidance.
The goal of my PhD research has been to investigate techniques to improve the quality of human-intensive processes (HIPs) (e.g., medical procedures) that involve coordination among human performers, software applications, and hardware devices. Since the HIPs are often complex involving aspects such as concurrency and exceptional situations, I have developed static analysis techniques that help prevent the HIPs from violating their overall system requirements and evaluated these techniques on case studies.
I contributed to the FLAVERS model checker that employs static data flow analysis techniques to verify whether or not all potential traces through a finite-state model of a system satisfy a given requirement of that system. If not, this model checker can generate a counterexample trace that illustrates a potential system requirement violation to help with program understanding and debugging.
Additionally, I investigated a static analysis approach to automatically derived requirements for components used in HIPs based on an interface synthesis method developed for software systems. The derived requirements are represented as finite state automata that prevent any sequences of procedure calls to a selected component that violate a given system requirement. The requirement derivation employs a learning algorithm to iteratively refine the automaton based on counterexamples traces generated by a model checker. Such requirements can be used to select the right process for a given component or alternatively to select the right component for a given process.
Checklists that guide the human performers though on-going processes have been applied in multiple domains and shown to reduce human errors. I am also contributing to a dynamic approach that generates context-sensitive Smart Checklists by matching validated HIP models against streams of real-world process activity events.
Publications
Most of my publications are available from the LASER publication database.
Refereed Papers
- "A Coding Framework for Usability Evaluation of Digital Health Technologies", Mahdi Ebnali, Lauren Kennedy-Metz, Heather Conboy, Lori Clarke, Leon Osterweil, George Avrunin, Christian Miccile, Maria Archanskiy, Annette Phillips, Marco Zenati, Roger Dias, To appear in the 2022 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI International 2022).
- "Digital Cognitive Aids to Support Adaptation of Surgical Processes to COVID-19 Protective Policies", Heather M. Conboy, Lauren R. Kennedy-Metz, George S. Avrunin, Lori A. Clarke, Leon J. Osterweil, Roger D. Dias, Marco A. Zenati, 2020 IEEE Conference on Cognitive and Computational Aspects of Situation Management (CogSIMA), Victoria, BC, Canada, 2020, pp. 205-210
- "Process-Model Driven Guidance to Reduce Surgical Procedure Errors: An Expert Opinion", Leon J. Osterweil, Heather M. Conboy, Lori A. Clarke, and George S. Avrunin, Seminars in Thoracic Cardiovascular Surgery, Volume 31, Issue 3, Autumn 2019, pp. 453-457.
- "Process Driven Guidance for Complex Surgical Procedures", George S. Avrunin, Stefan C. Christov, Heather M. Conboy, Lori A. Clarke, Leon J. Osterweil, and Marco A. Zenati, American Medical Informatics Association Annual Symposium Proceedings (AMIA’18), 2018, pp. 175-184.
- "Intelligent Interruption Management System to Enhance Safety and Performance in Complex Surgical and Robotic Procedures", Roger D. Dias, Heather M. Conboy, Jennifer M. Gabany, Lori A. Clarke, Leon J. Osterweil, David Arney, Julian M. Goldman, Giuseppe Riccardi, George S. Avrunin, Steven J. Yule, and Marco A. Zenati, "OR 2.0 Context-Aware Operating Theaters, Computer Assisted Robotic Endoscopy, Clinical Image-Based Procedures, and Skin Image Analysis", 2018, pp. 62 - 68.
- "Development of an Interactive Dashboard to Analyze Cognitive Workload of Surgical Teams During Complex Procedural Care", Roger Daglius Dias, Heather Conboy, Jennifer Gabany, Lori Clarke, Leon Osterweil, George S. Avrunin, David Arney, Julian Goldman, Giuseppe Riccardi, Steven Yule, and Marco A. Zenati, In Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE Conference on Cognitive and Computational Aspects of Situation Management (CogSIMA’18), 2018, pp. 77 - 82.
- "Toward Improving Surgical Outcomes by Incorporating Cognitive Load Measurement into Process-Driven Guidance", George S. Avrunin, Lori A. Clarke, Heather M. Conboy, Leon J. Osterweil, Roger D. Dias, Steven J. Yule, Julian M. Goldman, and Marco A. Zenati, In Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2018 Workshop on Software Engineering in Healthcare Systems (SEHS'18), 2018.
- "Cognitive Support During High-Consequence Episodes of Care in Cardiovascular Surgery", Heather M. Conboy, George S. Avrunin, Lori A. Clarke, Leon J. Osterweil, Stefan C. Christov, Julian M. Goldman, Steven J. Yule, and Marco A. Zenati, In Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE Conference on Cognitive and Computational Aspects of Situation Management (CogSIMA'17), 2017, pp. 1 - 3.
- "A Comprehensive Framework for Using Iterative Analysis to Improve Human-Intensive Process Security: An Election Example", Leon J. Osterweil, Matt Bishop, Heather M. Conboy, Huong Phan, Borislava I. Simidchieva, George S. Avrunin, Lori A. Clarke, and Sean Peissart, In ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (TOPS), 2017, pp. 5:1 - 5:31.
- "Smart Checklists to Improve Healthcare Outcomes", Stefan C. Christov, Heather M. Conboy, Nancy Famigletti, George S. Avrunin, Lori A. Clarke, and Leon J. Osterweil, In Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2016 Workshop on Software Engineering in Healthcare Systems (SEHS'16), 2016, pp. 54 - 57.
- "Process Modelling of Aortic Cannulation in Cardiac Surgery: Toward a Smart Checklist to Mitigate the Risk of Stroke", Heather M. Conboy, Jason K. Maron, Stefan C. Christov, George S. Avrunin, Lori A. Clarke, Leon J. Osterweil, and Marco A. Zenati, In Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Modeling and Monitoring of Computer Assisted Interventions (M2CAI'14), 2014.
- "Insider Threat Identification by Process Analysis", Matt Bishop, Heather M. Conboy, Huong Phan, Borislava I. Simidchieva, George S. Avrunin, Lori A. Clarke, Leon J. Osterweil, and Sean Peisert, In Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Research for Insider Threat (WRIT'14), 2014, pp. 251 - 264.
- "Modal Abstraction View of Requirements for Medical Devices Used in Healthcare Processes", Heather M. Conboy, George S. Avrunin, and Lori A. Clarke, In Proceedings of the ICSE 2013 Workshop on Software Engineering in Health Care (SEHC'13), 2013, pp. 24 - 27.
- "Process-Based Derivation of Requirements for Medical Devices", Heather M. Conboy, George S. Avrunin, and Lori A. Clarke, In Proceedings of the 1st ACM International Health Informatics Symposium (IHI'10), 2010, pp. 656 - 665.
Invited Talks and Posters
- "A Model-based Approach to Iteratively Improve Human Intensive Processes", Heather M. Conboy, The Parker Lab, Virginia Tech, March 2022. (Invited talk, virtual)
- "The Use of Process Modeling and Smart Checklists in Healthcare", Heather M. Conboy, BWH STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation Research Seminars, August 2020. (Invited talk, virtual)
- "Process-Model-Driven Guidance to Reduce Surgical Procedural Errors", Heather M. Conboy, George S. Avrunin, Stefan C. Christov, Lori A. Clarke, Leon J. Osterweil, and Marco A. Zenati, Surgical Patient Safety Course, American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS), Boston, Massachusetts, June 2019. (Abstract and poster)
- "MAC (Memory and Aging Center) Process Modeling Project", Heather M. Conboy and Kate Rankin, MAC, University of California San Francisco, March 2014. (Invited talk)
- "Learning Medical Device Requirements from Medical Processes", Heather M. Conboy, George S. Avrunin, and Lori A. Clarke, CRA-W Grad Cohort, San Francisco, March 2009. (Poster)
- "Building Finite State Verifier (FSV) Models from the Bandera Intermediate Representation (BIR)", Heather M. Conboy, George S. Avrunin, Lori A. Clarke, and Stephen F. Siegel, Laboratory for Specification, Analysis, and Transformation of Software, Kansas State University Manhattan, February 2002. (Invited talk)
Software Tools and Benchmarks
