Minhyuk Ko

Ph.D. student in Computer Science

My name is Minhyuk Ko. I am a Ph.D. student at Virginia Tech in the Department of Computer Science. Before joining VT, I did my undergraduate at George Mason University in 2022 and I earned my high school diploma from Centreville High School in 2019. My research interests include Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Software Engineering (SE), and Computer Science Education. At George Mason University, I worked as a undergraduate research assistant under Dr. Thomas LaToza, applying UX principles to iteratively evaluate and improve the usability of a web app for creating, finding, and using explicit programming strategies. At Virginia Tech, I work with Dr. Chris Brown in exploring empirical, interdisciplinary, and automated methods to improve the behavior, productivity, and decision-making of software engineers. My work has been published at top SE and HCI conferences, including EASE, ICSE and VL/HCC. I received the Best Short Paper, Honorable Mention at VL/HCC 2023 and Distinguished Paper Award at ICSE 2023.

minhyukko vt.edu | Google Scholar | Github | LinkedIn | Mastodon | ORCID

News

Our papers, "AutoPrint: Judging the Effectiveness of An Automatic Print Statement Debugging Tool" and "Programmers Without Borders: Bridging Cultures in Computer Science Study Abroad Program", are accepted to VL/HCC 2025
Our paper, "Are We on the Same Page? Examining Developer Perception Alignment in Open Source Code Reviews", is accepted to EASE 2025.
Our paper, "Exploring the Barriers and Factors that Influence Debugger Usage for Students", won a Best Short Paper Honorable Mention.
Our paper on Exploring the Barriers and Factors that Influence Debugger Usage for Students is accepted to VL/HCC 2023.
Our paper on A Qualitative Study on the Implementation Design Decisions of Developers is accepted to ICSE 2023.

Publications

2025

  1. [VL/HCC 2025] AutoPrint: Judging the Effectiveness of An Automatic Print Statement Debugging Tool
    Minhyuk Ko, Omer Ahmed, Yoseph Berhanu Alebachew, Chris Brown
    Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing 2025
    6 Pages. 37% Acceptance Rate
  2. [VL/HCC 2025] Programmers Without Borders: Bridging Cultures in Computer Science Study Abroad Program
    Minhyuk Ko, Mohammed Seyam, Chris Brown
    Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing 2025
    6 Pages. 37% Acceptance Rate
  3. [EASE 2025] Are We on the Same Page? Examining Developer Perception Alignment in Open Source Code Reviews.
    Yoseph Berhanu Alebachew, Minhyuk Ko, Chris Brown
    The 29th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering 2025
    12 Pages. 27% Acceptance Rate

2023

  1. [VL/HCC 2023] Exploring the Barriers and Factors that Influence Debugger Usage for Students
    Minhyuk Ko, Dibyendu Brinto Bose, Hemayet Ahmed Chowdhury, Mohammed Seyam, Chris Brown
    Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing 2023
    5 Pages. 29% Acceptance Rate 🏆 Best Short Paper Honorable Mention 🏆
  2. [ICSE 2023] A Qualitative Study on the Implementation Design Decisions of Developers
    Jenny T. Liang, Maryam Arab, Minhyuk Ko, Amy Ko, Thomas LaToza
    The ACM/IEEE 45th International Conference on Software Engineering 2023
    13 Pages. 26% Acceptance Rate 🏆 Distinguished Paper Award 🏆


Alan Perlis 1922–1990: a founding father of computer science as a separate discipline (Purdue U., CMU, Caltech, Yale U.) 
|__ 1978 Yale Spencer Rugaber  (Georgia Tech.)
  |__ 2014 Chris Parnin (North Carolina State U.)
    |__ 2021 Chris Brown (Virginia Tech)	
      |__ Minhyuk Ko (Virginia Tech)						

  
Advisee tree credit: https://www.chrisparnin.me/