The software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) is primarily concerned with studies that deal with the empirical understanding of software phenomena. Over the years we have built a foundation on research that explores how software design patterns evolve. Design patterns can be thought of as micro-architectures with well defined structure and behavior, thus changes observed over the evolution of their lifespans can be measured against higher level abstractions.  Many problems are embedded in this research: pattern recognition, taxonomies, behavioral and structural measurement, grime phenomena, automated refactoring, static analysis, technical debt, simulation, and different forms of case studies and formal experiments.

    Our Laboratory is also involved and has a working collaboration with the Fluvial Landscape Laboratory in the Land Resources and Environmental Sciences Department (LRES) at MSU.  Together, we have developed a novel framework for simulation of flow networks and are currently developing visualization and uncertainty quantification capabilities.