Education

Doctor of Philosophy
Computer Science- 2018 - 2023 (expected)
- Virginia Tech
- Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
- Advisor: Dr. Francisco Servant
- Committee: Dr. Eli Tilevich , Dr. Na Meng , Dr. Muhammad Ali Gulzar , and Dr. Thomas LaToza
- Research area: software engineering

Master of Science
Computer Science- 2016 - 2018
- Virginia Tech
- Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
- Advisor: Dr. Francisco Servant
- Committee: Dr. Eli Tilevich and Dr. Na Meng
- Research area: software engineering
- Thesis: Unfolding the Rationale for Code Commits

Bachelor of Science
Computer Science- 2011 - 2015
- University of Dammam
- Dammam, Eastern Province, KSA
- Advisor: Dr. Dilek Dustegor
- Committee: Dr. Imran Mahmood and Aadam S. O. Olatunji
- Research area: software engineering
- Senior project: iTrack: Energy Monitoring System
Publications
- All
- Recent
- 2015 (1)
- 2016 (1)
- 2019 (1)
- 2022 (1)
- 24\% Acceptance Rate (1)
- Conference Paper (2)
- ESEC SIGSOFT FSE (1)
- First Author (4)
- IJCDS (1)
- JSS (1)
- Journal Paper (2)
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2022
Khadijah Al Safwan , Mohamed Elarnaoty , and Francisco Servant
Developers' Need for the Rationale of Code Commits: An In-breadth and In-depth Study
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2019
Khadijah Al Safwan and Francisco Servant
Decomposing the Rationale of Code Commits: The Software Developers' Perspective
Tallinn, Harju, Estonia
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2016
Khadijah Al Safwan , Fatimah AlShaer , Lolah Hakami , Khawlah Aseeri , Masoumah AlJishi , and Dilek Dustegor
Design and Implementation of a Residential Energy Monitoring System Prototype Tailored to Meet Local Needs
International Journal of Computing and Digital Systems (IJCDS)
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2015
Khadijah Al Safwan , Fatimah AlShaer , Lolah Hakami , Khawlah Aseeri , Masoumah AlJishi , and Dilek Dustegor
iTrack: A Residential Energy Monitoring System Tailored to Meet Local Needs
Zallaq, Bahrain, Bahrain
Fifth International Conference on e-Learning: Cognitively Informed Technology (econf)
Work Experience
- All
- Current
- Academic
- Industry
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2021, 2022
Instructor of Record
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I worked as an instructor of records (lecturer) for junior-level software engineering course. As an instructor, I developed many skills including presentation, communication, management, and conflict resolution skills.
Semester
Course
TA/s
Students
2022 Fall
CS 3704 Intermediate Software Design
Gabriella Nikki Ramirez , John Oh , Christopher Stoll , and Abhilash Chauhan
73 Students
2022 Summer II
CS 3704 Intermediate Software Design
9 Students
2021 Spring
CS 3704 Intermediate Software Design
Ibrahim Asadullah Tahmid , Ahmad Hossein Yazdani , Chinmayee Schandra , Tahmid Muttaki , and Yuan Chen
90 Students
-
2019 - Now
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I worked as a teaching assistant (GTA) for various computer science courses (graduate and undergraduate) including software engineering, databases, data structure, and web development courses. My responsibilities focus on assisting both enrolled students and the course instructors. As a GTA, I developed many skills including working under pressure and communication.
Semester
Course
Instructor/s
Students
2022 Spring
CS 5704 Software Engineering
67 Students
2021 Fall
CS 5704 Software Engineering
90 Students
2020 Fall
CS 5774 User Interface Software
25 Students
2020 Summer
CS 3114 Data Structures & Algorithms
41 Students
2020 Spring
CS 4604 Introduction to Data Base Management Systems
Richard Quintin and Michael Schulte
64 Students
2019 Fall
CS 5704 Software Engineering
21 Students
2019 Spring
CS 5704 Software Engineering
61 Students
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Fall 2018 and Summer 2021
Graduate Research Assistant
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I worked as a graduate research assistant (GRA) for Dr. Francisco Servant's research projects during Fall 2018 and Summer 2021. My responsibilities comprise of assisting the development of research instruments and defining research problems. As a GRA, I developed many technical skills (e.g., data analysis) and soft skills (e.g., critical thinking, decision-making).
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2014 - 2015
Researcher
Dammam, Eastern, KSA
For the senior project of my undergraduate studies, I lead a team of five students. We build a prototype for a research project. As a team leader, I developed my technical skills (e.g., programming and literature review) and soft skills (e.g., organization and leadership).
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Summer 2014
COOP Trainee
Al Khobar, Eastern, KSA
I train at Wipro the summer after my junior year. As a trainee, I developed my technical skills (e.g., ABAP programming).
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Oct - Dec 2013
Administrative-Work Assistant
Dammam, Eastern, KSA
I helped the administration office staff of the Computer Science Department. I worked on the paperwork for exams scheduling and arrangement. As an assistant, I developed my soft skills (e.g., problem-solving).
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Summer 2013
Summer Trainee
Dhahran, Eastern, KSA
I train at Saudi Aramco the summer after my sophomore year. As a first time trainee, I gain exposure to the work environment, processes, and systems. I developed my technical skills (e.g., database querying) and soft skills (e.g., teamwork and coordination).
Awards
- All
- Recent
- Travel Award (2)
- Scholarship (1)
- Excellence Award (2)
- Competition Winning Award (2)
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2020 Academic Year
Graduate Teaching Assistant of the Year
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I was awarded the graduate teaching assistant of the year title during the annual department awards ceremony.
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2019
Travel to Tapia Conference Award
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I was rewarded with a travel award to the ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing conference.
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2019
ACM SIGSOFT Travel Support at ESEC/FSE 2019 Conferences
I have received travel reimbursement of expenses for 27th ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering.
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2016 - 2018
Graduate Studies Scholarship
Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission (SACM)
Washington, DC, USA
I was gifted with a full scholarship for the master degree including the university tuition and living expenses.
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2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
Annual Excellence Award
Dammam, Eastern, KSA
I was honored for having a cumulative GPA above 4.5 out of 5 for four consecutive years.
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2012
Coding Marathon Winning Award
Dammam, Eastern, KSA
The team I was leading won the competition of the programming race.
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2012
Best Management Committee Award
Dammam, Eastern, KSA
My team won the competition for managing the edition of network magazine for Network Protocols & E-Commerce course.
Skills
- All
- Most Expert In
- Computer Skills (78)
- Apps and Tools (34)
- Programming Languages (17)
- Cloud Computing (16)
- Data Science (15)
- Office and Writing (13)
- Integrated Development Environments (9)
- Modeling and Design (7)
- Visualization Tools (6)
- Google G Suite (5)
- JetBrains (5)
- Microsoft Office (4)
- Server (4)
- Soft Skills (4)
- Adobe (3)
- Communication (3)
- File Transfer (3)
- Operating Systems (3)
- Simulation Tools (3)
- Grading (2)
- Remote Connection (2)
- Spoken Languages (2)
- Teaching (2)
- Hardware (1)
Adobe Dreamweaver
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Lightroom
Axure
Balsamiq Wireframes
Circuit Maker
D3
Enterprise Architect
Lucidchart
MatLab
Mathematica
Microsoft SQL Server
MySQL Workbench
National Instruments
Packet Tracer
Processing
R
SPSS
Skype
Slack
Tableau
Zoom
Amazon Web Service
Apache
CPanel
Cyberduck
Docker
FileZilla
GoodSync
Nginx
Passenger
Putty
Raspberry Pi
VNC
XAMPP
Apache Solr
MongoDB
MySQL
DataGrip
IntelliJ
NetBeans
PHPStorm
PyCharm
SAP IDE
Visual Studio
WebStorm
Atom
Excel
Google Docs
Google Drive
Google Forms
Google Sheets
Google Slides
LaTeX
PowerPoint
Qualtrics
Sublime Text
Visio
Word
Mac OS
Ubuntu Linux
Windows
ABAP
ASP.NET
C
C++
CSS
HTML5
JQuery
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
NodeJs
PHP
Prolog
Python
SQL
Scheme
Leadership
Organization
Technical Writing
Verbal Communication
Arabic
English
Canvas
Web-Cat
Projects
- All
- Recent
- Course Project (20)
- University of Dammam (14)
- Programming (12)
- Virginia Tech (12)
- Research (6)
- Empirical Study (5)
- Rationale (3)
- Topic Search (3)
- Hardware (2)
- Prototype (2)
- Desktop Application (1)
- Modeling and Simulation (1)
- Senior Project (1)
-
2022
Identifying Racial Microaggressions in Social Media
Qualitative analysis and Workshop
-
2021
Francisco Servant and Khadijah Al Safwan
An Empirical Study of GitHub Pull Requests
Apache Solr , Big data analysis , GH Archive , JavaScript , MongoDB , Python , Qualitative analysis , Visualization , and Writing
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2021
Francisco Servant , Xianhao Jin , and Khadijah Al Safwan
Continuous Integration (CI) Human Study
Interviewing , Literature review , and Qualitative analysis
-
2019
An Empirical Study of Rationale Discussions
Apache Solr , GH Archive , MongoDB , Python , and Topic modeling
CS6704 Software Engineering Research
-
2018 - 2022
Francisco Servant , Mohamed Elarnaoty , and Khadijah Al Safwan
Developers' Need for Rationale
Interviewing , JavaScript , Qualitative analysis , Quantitative analysis , Surveying , Visualization , and Writing
-
2018
United States Flights Delays
SPSS
EDRE6605 Quantitative Research Methods in Education I
-
2018
Edward Powell and Khadijah Al Safwan
Big Blue Marble
AWS , Balsamiq Wireframes , CSS , D3 , HTML , JQuery , JavaScript , MySQL , PHP , and SQL
CS5774 User Interface Software
-
2017
Haitao Wang , Han-Hsien Chen , Khadijah Al Safwan , Stefan Nagy , and Tianyi Li
GLC Reserve Yourself
Balsamiq Wireframes and Prototype
CS5714 Usability Engineering
-
2017
Frank Claytor , Khadijah Al Safwan , and Saurabh Chakravarty
Data Analysis Challenge
D3 , JavaScript , and Tableau
CS5764 Information Visualization
-
2017
Andrej Galad and Khadijah Al Safwan
Automatic Recommendation of Developers to Fix a Bug
Java , Python , and scikit-learn
CS5614 Big Data Management Systems
-
2017
Exploratory Study of Software Changes Rationale
Literature Search
CS5704 Software Engineering
-
2016
Programming Language Compiler
Prolog
CS5314 Concepts of Programming Languages
-
2014
Dana Garwan , Fatimah Al-Shaer , and Khadijah Al Safwan
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)
Writing
CS513 Mobile Computing
-
2014
iTrack Energy Monitoring System
CSS , HTML , JQuery , JavaScript , MySQL , PHP , Raspberry Pi , and SQL
CS511 Project Proposal
CS521 Project Implementation
-
2014
Fatimah Al-Shaer and Khadijah Al Safwan
Your Next Trip Terminus
Prolog
CS512 Artificial Intelligence
-
2014
Fatimah Jassim Al-Shaer , Khadijah Al Safwan , Khawla Aseeri , Lolah Hakami , and Masoumah AlJishi
Intra Uterine Fetal Growth Rate Prediction
AnyLogic , Modeling , and Simulation
CS522 Selected Topics in CS
-
2014
Fatimah Jassim Al-Shaer , Khadijah Al Safwan , Khawla Aseeri , Lolah Hakami , and Masoumah AlJishi
Bloom Bouquet: Online Flowers Store
Java EE and MySQL
CS522 Selected Topics in CS
-
2014
Ebtihal Al Khalifah , Fatimah Jassim Al-Shaer , Khadijah Al Safwan , Khawla Aseeri , and Lolah Hakami
Reading Club System (Bookworm)
Apache , CSS , HTML , JavaScript , MySQL , and PHP
CIS423 Web-Based Systems
-
2014
Dana Ali Garwan , Fatimah Jassim Al-Shaer , and Khadijah Al Safwan
IQ test for children
Java and Python
CS526 Mobile Application Programming
-
2013
Doaa Alsadah , Fatimah Jassim Al-Shaer , Khadijah Al Safwan , Khawla Aseeri , and Lolah Hakami
Books for Sale
Axure and Balsamiq Wireframes
CIS422 Human Computer Interaction
-
2013
Fatimah Abdullah Al-Shaer , Fatimah Jassim Al-Shaer , Khadijah Al Safwan , Khawla Aseeri , and Lolah Hakami
Design of SMS Spam Filter
Topic Search and Writing
CIS425 Comp Data Security & Privacy
-
2013
Fatimah Al Khater , Fatimah Jassim Al-Shaer , Khadijah Al Safwan , and Wedyan Al Otaibi
Online Hotel Reservation System
Analysis
CIS411 Software Engineering
-
2012
Fatimah Al Abood , Khadijah Al Safwan , and Sakina Al Abbad
Electronic Dice Project
Building Electrical Circuit
CS314 Digital Hardware
-
2012
Fatimah Al Abood , Fatimah Al Naji , Fatimah Al-Shaer , Khadijah Al Safwan , and Sakina Al Abbad
File System Explorer
JAVA
CS322 Operating Systems
-
2012
Fatimah Al Abood , Fatimah Al Naji , Fatimah Jassim Al-Shaer , Khadijah Al Safwan , and Sakina Al Abbad
Restaurant management system
JAVA
CS321 Object Orientated Programming II
-
2011
Fatimah Al Abood , Jenan Slham , Khadijah Al Safwan , Marwa Al Habas , Sakina Al Abbad , and Zahra Al Fardan
Human Computer Interaction
Leadership and Writing
CIS211 Fundamentals of information systems
Activities and Services
- All
- Recent
- Volunteering (7)
- Virginia Tech (17)
- University of Dammam (5)
- Services (2)
- Research (6)
- Presentations (5)
- Papers Review (2)
- Mentorship (3)
- Leadership (1)
- Conferences (5)
- Career Development (6)
- 2023 (1)
- 2022 (4)
- 2021 (6)
- 2020 (3)
- 2019 (8)
- 2018 (1)
- 2017 (2)
- 2016 (1)
- 2015 (3)
- 2014 (2)
- 2013 (2)
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2022
GHS Chair Selection Committee - Panelist
Virginia Tech Graduate Honor System
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I served as a panelist in the committee for selecting the Graduate Honor System (GHS) chair.
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Fall 2022
Instructor of Record - Lectures teaching
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I am teaching Intermediate Software Design and Engineering (CS 3704) during Fall 2022
-
Summer 2022
Instructor of Record - Lectures teaching
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I am teaching Intermediate Software Design and Engineering (CS 3704) during Summer II 2022
-
2021
Program Committee (PC) Member - Reviewer
Virtual venue
I am participating in the 8th International Workshop on Realizing Artificial Intelligence Synergies in Software Engineering (RAISE 2021) program committee
-
Summer 2021
Research Mentor
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I mentored Zaineb Almarzooq during the summer. Zaineb is an undergraduate student in the department who is interested in research.
-
Spring 2021
Accelerate to Industry (A2i) Attendee
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I attended the Accelerate to Industry (A2i) - Professional Development Series seminars/workshops in Spring 2021 semester.
-
Spring 2021
Instructor of Record - Lectures teaching
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I am teaching Intermediate Software Design and Engineering (CS 3704) during spring 2021
-
2021
Program Committee (PC) Member - Reviewer
Virtual venue
I am participating in 2021 Mining Software Repositories Conference (MSR) Shadow program committee (Shadow PC)
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Spring 2019 & 2020
Recruitment Weekend Volunteer
Blacksburg, VA, USA
The "Recruitment Weekend" events introduce Virginia Tech and the Computer Science (CS) department to prospective graduate students.
- In 2019, I attended a social event and chatted with prospective students about graduate studies in the CS department.
- In 2020, I joined the poster session where I presented a poster and talked about my research lab work. I also attended a social event. -
Spring 2020
5-Minutes Madness Presenter
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I introduced my research work in a "5-Minutes Madness" event for the computer science undergraduate students who are interested in research.
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Fall 2019
Lightning Talk Presenter
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I introduced my research lab work in a "Lightning Talks" event for the computer science graduate students.
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Sep 2019
Tapia Conference Attendee
San Diego, CA, USA
I attended the ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing conference. I was responsible for staffing the Virginia Tech booth in the conference career fair for two sessions.
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2016 & 2019
CS Career Fair Attendee
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I attended the computer science (CS) career fair, which was a great opportunity for learning about the computing industry.
-
Aug 2019
ESEC/FSE Conference Attendee
Tallinn, Harju, Estonia
I attended and presented a research paper at the 27th ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE2019).
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Summer 2019
Research Mentor
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I mentored Chenkai Ren during the summer. Kai is an undergraduate student in the department who is interested in research.
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2019 - Now
Research Lab Representative
Blacksburg, VA, USA
As a lab representative, I serve as a communication channel to the graduate council and department leadership.
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2018 - 2019
VT PEERS Volunteer
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I volunteered for the VT PEERS Program, a partnering program with educators and engineers in rural schools. I participate as a facilitator to support hands-on classroom activities.
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Summer 2017
Research Mentor
Blacksburg, VA, USA
I mentored Jahdiel Couchman during the summer. Jahdiel was a student in the Multicultural Academic Opportunities Program (MAOP).
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Feb 2017
CAPWIC Conference Attendee
Washington, DC, USA
I attended the Capital Region Celebration of Women in Computing Conference (CAPWIC) keynotes, sessions, and workshops.
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Mar 2015
Career Forum Participant
Dammam, Eastern, KSA
I presented the idea of my senior project in the career forum organized by the University of Dammam.
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Apr 2014
University Libraries Volunteer
Dammam, Eastern, KSA
I volunteered for the electronic resources of libraries workshop to educate the university students about the serveries offered by the electronic libraries.
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Feb 2014 & 2015
Aramco Seminar Attendee
Dammam, Eastern, KSA
I completed the Saudi Aramco information technology seminar for female universities.
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Dec 2013
E-Government Workshop Volunteer
Dammam, Eastern, KSA
I volunteered for the E-Government workshop to educated the university students about the electronic services provided by Saudi government ministries' websites.
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Feb 2013
University Intro-Session Volunteer
Dammam, Eastern, KSA
I volunteered for the university introductory session. I represented the College of Computer Science and Information Technology (CSIT) in the event to introduce the college program to high school students.