Sanjay Malakar

I am a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at University of California, Riverside (UCR), advised by Prof. Manu Sridharan and a member of the RIPLE group. My research lies at the intersection of program analysis and software reliability. I'm working on detecting and repairing resource leaks in Java.

I'm currently a Compiler Developer Research Intern at Nissan, building compilers for accelerator-based perception in its autonomous vehicles. Previously, I worked as a Senior Software Engineer at OpenRefactory, Inc.,developing SAST tools to detect and fix security, reliability, and compliance bugs.

I hold an M.Sc. in Computer Science from UCR and a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, where I completed my undergraduate thesis under the supervision of Prof. Rifat Shahriyar, focusing on fixing data race conditions in multi-threaded applications. Additionally, I worked with Dr. Gias Uddin and Dr. Anindya Iqbal on an empirical study of challenges in low-code software development, addressing developer productivity, usability, and adoption barriers.

Beyond research, I am passionate about advancing software reliability and security through automation.

Recent News

Experience

Compiler Developement Research Intern

Nissan North America, Inc.

Contributing to MLIR-based compiler infrastructure for deploying perception models on accelerator hardware in Nissan's autonomous-driving stack. I collaborate with hardware team to refine the toolchain and explore optimizations as the project evolves.

June 2025 - Present

Graduate Research Assistant

University of California, Riverside

Researching automated repair of resource leak bugs in Java. Developed **Arodnap**, a static-analysis pipeline that blends specification inference, lightweight code transformations, Resource Enclosement Analysis, and field-reassignment analysis.

July 2024 - Present

Graduate Teaching Assistant

University of California, Riverside

CS 180: Introduction to Software Engineering

January 2025 - March 2025

Senior Software Engineer

OpenRefactory, Inc.

Contributed to the development of Intelligent Code Repair (iCR), a Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tool designed to detect and fix bugs in Java, Python, and Go projects. Key responsibilities and contributions:

  • Designed and implemented algorithms for pointer analysis, including incremental analysis and handling of threading and framework lifecycle methods.
  • Developed custom checkers for advanced bug detection, including taint analysis and null pointer detection.
  • Executed performance optimizations using ProtoBuf, improving memory efficiency and serialization performance.
  • Transitioned the deployment architecture from monolithic to microservices, enabling scalability for SaaS platforms.
  • Established CI/CD pipelines, integrating streamlined testing workflows and deployment automation.

February 2021 - August 2023

Education

University of California, Riverside

Doctor of Philosophy
Computer Science
September 2023 - Present

University of California, Riverside

Master of Science
Computer Science
September 2023 - June 2025

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology

Bachelor of Science
Computer Science and Engineering
February 2016 - February 2021

Publications and Projects

Repairing Leaks in Resource Wrappers

Co-Authors: Martin Kellogg, Michael D. Ernst, Manu Sridharan

Automates detection and repair of Java resource leak bugs in wrapper classes via a static-analysis pipeline.

Status: Under Review in 2025 IEEE/ACM Automated Software Engineering (ASE) Conference.

Developer Discussion Topics on the Adoption and Barriers of Low Code Software Development Platforms

Co-Authors: Md Abdullah Al Alamin, Gias Uddin, Sadia Afroz, Tameem Bin Haider, Anindya Iqbal

Published in the Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE) journal, this study builds on our MSR’21 paper. We applied topic modeling to 33K relevant Stack Overflow posts from 38 popular low-code platforms, conducting a manual annotation of statistically significant data samples to identify adoption barriers and trends.

Status: Accepted in 2023 Elsevier Empirical Software Engineering Journal (EMSE). [PDF] [CODE]

An Empirical Study of Developer Discussions on Low-Code Software Development Challenges

Co-Authors: Md Abdullah Al Alamin, Gias Uddin, Sadia Afroz, Tameem Bin Haider, Anindya Iqbal

This study analyzed approximately 5K Stack Overflow posts discussing nine popular low-code platforms. We identified trends, challenges, and implications for practitioners, platform providers, educators, and researchers.

Status: Accepted in 2021 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR). [PDF] [Code] [Video]

RaceFixer - An Automated Data Race Fixer

Co-Authors: Tameem Bin Haider, Rifat Shahriyar

My undergraduate thesis, RaceFixer, is a Clang-based tool that automates the detection and repair of single-variable atomicity violations. It enhances ThreadSanitizer's bug reports with static analysis to generate suitable patches, emphasizing lock reuse and deadlock prevention.

Skills

Achievements

Scholarships

  • Deans Distinguished Fellowship - Awarded at the University of California, Riverside (2023-2024)
  • University Merit Scholarship - Achieved stipends from BUET in four out of seven terms for excellent result
  • Talentpool Scholarship - Achieved from Bangladesh Government in Higher Secondary School Certificate Examination (2016-2020), Secondary School Certificate Examination (2014-2015), and Junior School Certificate Examination (2011-2012) for outstanding performance

Awards

  • Dean's List Award - Got award from BUET in Junior year for an extraordinary result
  • Shapla Cub Award - Received from the honorable Prime Minister of Bangladesh for extraordinary performance as a Cub Scout

Contact

463 Winston Chung Hall, 900 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92521
iamsanjaymalakar@gmail.com
smala009@ucr.edu