Daye Nam

Last updated in . Get the latest version at dayenam.github.io/cv.

Research Area

My research focuses on designing, building, and evaluating AI tools for programmers at all levels, with a strong emphasis on making these tools useful and usable. My ultimate goal is to create a future where building software is more accessible, efficient, and enjoyable for everyone, while ensuring programmers still stay in control. To do so, I work at the intersection of software engineering, AI, and human-computer interaction.

Education

2018–2024 PhD in Software Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA

Dissertation: User-Centered Intelligent Information Support for Programmers
Advisors: Brad Myers, Bogdan Vasilescu, and Vincent Hellendoorn

2016–2018 MS in Computer Science, University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA

Advisor: Nenad Medvidovic

2012–2016 BS in Computer Science, Yonsei University Seoul, South Korea

Positions

2025–present University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA
Assistant Professor, Department of Informatics
2024–2025 Google Sunnyvale, CA
Research Scientist
2021 Facebook Remote
Software Engineering Intern, with Satish Chandra
2020 Google Remote
Research Scientist Intern, with Andrew Macvean

Publications [Interactive Version]

Preprint

P2
From prompts to propositions: A logic-based lens on student-llm interactions
Ali Alfageeh, Sadegh AlMahdi Kazemi Zarkouei, Daye Nam, Daniel Prol, Matin Amoozadeh, Souti Chattopadhyay, James Prather, Paul Denny, Juho Leinonen, Michael Hilton, Sruti Srinivasa Ragavan, Mohammad Amin Alipour. arXiv preprint, 2025.
P1
Prompting LLMs for code editing: Struggles and remedies
Daye Nam, Ahmed Omran, Ambar Murillo, Saksham Thakur, Abner Araujo, Marcel Blistein, Alexander Frömmgen, Vincent Hellendoorn, Satish Chandra. arXiv preprint, 2025.

Peer-reviewed Conference Publications

C12
How much does AI impact development speed? An enterprise-based randomized controlled trial
Elise Paradis, Kate Grey, Quinn Madison, Daye Nam, Andrew Macvean, Vahid Meimand, Nan Zhang, Ben Ferrari-Church, Satish Chandra. ICSE SEIP '25, 2025.
C10
Trust in Generative AI among Students: An exploratory study
Matin Amoozadeh, David Daniels, Daye Nam, Aayush Kumar, Stella Chen, Michael Hilton, Sruti Srinivasa Ragavan, Mohammad Amin Alipour. SIGCSE, 2024.
C6
Predictive synthesis of API-centric code
Daye Nam*, Baishakhi Ray*, Seohyun Kim, Xianshan Qu, Satish Chandra. MAPS '22, 2022.
C5
The long tail: Understanding the discoverability of API functionality
Amber Horvath, Sachin Grover, Sihan Dong, Emily Zhou, Finn Voichick, Mary Beth Kery, Shwetha Shinju, Daye Nam, Mariann Nagy, Brad Myers. VL/HCC '19, 2019.

Peer-reviewed Journal Publications

Lightly-Reviewed Publications

L2
API Design Implications of Boilerplate Client Code
Daye Nam. ASE SRC '19, 2019. ACM Student Research Competition 2nd Place
L1
Identifying Inter-Component Communication Vulnerabilities in Event-based Systems
Youn Kyu Lee, Daye Nam, Nenad Medvidovic. Technical Report, 2017.

Thesis

Patents

Jae Young Bang, Youn Kyu Lee, Nenad Medvidovic, Daye Nam, Gholamreza Safi, Arman Shahbazian, Peera Yoodee, Yixue Zhao

Teaching

Fall 2025 SWE 233 Intelligent User Interface University of California, Irvine

Fall 2022 17-313 Foundations of Software Engineering Carnegie Mellon University

Co-Instructor for Michael Hilton, Rohan Padhye, Chris Timperley, and Daye Nam, ~150 students, 2 sections
Collaborated with course instructors to enhance course structure, project requirements, and assignments to accommodate a larger class size. Delivered 4 lectures on team communication, documentation, ML explainability, and user studies.

Fall 2021 17-313 Foundations of Software Engineering Carnegie Mellon University

Head Teaching Assistant for Michael Hilton and Rohan Padhye, ~70 students
Assisted course instructors in developing midterm and assignment content and delivered a lecture on automated developer tools. Created grading rubrics for assignments and exams and supervised a team of 3 undergraduate TAs.

Service

Organizing Committees

2022 ESEC/FSE 2023 Web Chair

Program Committees

ICSE 2026, ASE 2025, HumanAI4SE 2025, FSE Demo 2025, ICSE SEIP 2024, ASE Industry 2024, FSE Artifact 2021

Paper Reviewing

TOSEM 2023-2025, Empirical Software Engineering 2024-2025, Tiis 2025, UIST 2022, 2024, Semantic Web Journal 2018

Community Service

2023 ICSE 2023 Student Volunteer
CMU Graduate Applicant Support Program at SCS Organizer
2022 ICSE 2022 Student Volunteer
CMU Graduate Applicant Support Program at SCS Organizer
CMU ISR Teaching-Track Faculty Hiring Committee Member
2021 CMU Graduate Applicant Support Program at SCS Mentor
2020 ICSE 2020 Student Volunteer
CMU Graduate Applicant Support Program at SCS Department Lead
CMU Graduate Applicant Support Program at SCS Mentor
2019 CMU ISR-SE Ph.D. Admission Committee Member
2018 ICSE 2018 Student Volunteer

Awards & Honors

2023 SIGSOFT CAPS Student Travel Award for FSE 2024 ACM SIGSOFT
NSF Travel Award for FSE 2024 NSF
NSF Travel Award for ICSE 2023 NSF
2020 Nominated for Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship (1 student from CMU-ISR)
Nominated for Google PhD Fellowship (1 of 4 students from CMU)
2019 Finalist for the Microsoft Research Ada Lovelace Fellowship
ACM Student Research Competition Travel Award for ASE 2019 ACM
2018 SIGSOFT CAPS Student Travel Award for ICSE 2018 ACM SIGSOFT
Best Research Award (2 recipients in CS Department) University of Southern California
2017 Academic Excellence Scholarship Yonsei Alumni Association of Southern California
2015 Grand Prize, Graduation Exhibition, Computer Science Yonsei University
2014–2015 Academic Excellence Scholarship Korea Student Aid Foundation
2013 Outstanding Paper Award WISET
Academic Excellence Scholarship Yonsei University