GEODES is the software engineering research group of the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research (DIRO) at the University of Montreal. Growing in numbers, our group is currently led by 4 professors: Houari SAHRAOUI, Benoit BAUDRY, Eugene SYRIANI, Michalis FAMELIS, and counts 13 students and researchers.
Our research spans through the whole software engineering lifecycle, with a special emphasis on the requirements, design, development, and maintenance phases.

Focus areas

  • Requirements & Design

    • Goal modeling
    • Design-time uncertainty
    • Product lines
    • Software rationale

  • Modeling & Simulation

    • Domain-specific languages
    • Collaborative modeling
    • Simulation-based design
    • Digital twins

  • AI & Optimization

    • Code synthesis
    • AI-powered assistance
    • Pattern mining
    • Recommender systems

Our history – the short version

GEODES was founded as part of DIRO in 1992. It was then called GÉLO and changed to GEODES in 2005. Since then, more than 30 students have obtained a PhD degree from the group, and over 100 students have graduated with a Master's degree. Many of these students are professors in Quebec, Canada, and around the world (ÉTS, Laval, Polytechnique, UQAM, Ottawa, DePaul, Houston, Indiana, Michigan, United Arab Emirates, etc.), and others hold key positions at large tech companies.
GEODES is a very active research group with over 20 publications per year in journals, conference proceedings, and book chapters. The group has developed strong connections with local SMEs and large industrial groups, leading to frequent collaborations and projects.
We are active members of our extended scientific community. Recently, we have organized the 23rd and 25th editions of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS).