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Code & Sorcery Lab - Empirical Game Research
Publications are listed on the publications page.

General Information

Full Name Cristiano Politowski
Position Assistant Professor, Computer Science, Faculty of Science
Affiliation Ontario Tech University, Oshawa, ON, Canada
Languages English, Portuguese, French, Spanish
Research Keywords Video Game Studies, Video Game Development, Video Game Testing, Software Development, AI for Software Development, Empirical Studies

Education

  • 2022
    Ph.D. in Software Engineering
    Concordia University, Montréal, QC, Canada
    • Supervised by Fabio Petrillo and Yann-Gaël Guéhéneuc.
  • 2015
    M.Sc. in Computer Science
    Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM), Brazil
    • Supervised by Lisandra Manzoni Fontoura.
  • 2014
    B.Sc. in Computer Science
    Universidade Regional do Noroeste do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (UNIJUÍ), Brazil
    • Supervised by Fabricia C. Roos Frantz.

Experience

  • 2024 - now
    Assistant Professor (Tenure Track)
    Computer Science, Faculty of Science, Ontario Tech University
  • 2023 - 2024
    Postdoctoral Fellow
    Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle (DIRO), Université de Montréal
    • Worked with Houari Sahraoui and Michalis Famelis on automated software testing.
  • 2022 - 2023
    Postdoctoral Fellow
    Département de génie logiciel et des TI, École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS)
    • Worked with Ghizlane El-Boussaidi on software requirements and testing.
  • 2019 - 2023
    Teaching Assistant
    Computer Science and Software Engineering, Concordia University
    • Software Engineering Design Project (SOEN 390), Software Architecture and Design (SOEN 343), Software Design Methodology (SOEN 6441).
  • 2014 - 2018
    Software Engineer
    Livid (startup)
    • Maintained a legacy PHP application with a focus on database performance, and extended the web server to serve optimized assets.
  • 2011 - 2013
    Web Developer
    IC1 (startup)
    • Front-end and back-end development in Java (Struts 2, Hibernate) with PostgreSQL.

Research Funding

  • 2024 - 2030
    Startup grant
    Ontario Tech University, Canada — principal applicant
  • 2024 - 2026
    Improving Aspects of Software Development Productivity using Language Models
    CNPq, Brazil — co-applicant
    • With André Hora, Diego Elias Costa, Eduardo Figueiredo, Fábio Petrillo, João Eduardo Montandon and Marco Túlio Valente.
  • 2024 - 2026
    Playtesting Based on Coverage Criteria
    CNPq, Brazil — co-applicant
    • With Andre Takeshi Endo and Yohan Duarte Pessanha.
  • 2021 - 2022
    Verifying and Deploying 5G Cloud Infrastructure for Healthcare Facilities Dealing with COVID-19 Patients
    MITACS Accelerate with Humanitas Solutions — co-applicant
  • 2018 - 2019
    Évaluation empirique des environnements de développement logiciel
    Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) — collaborator

Event Organization

  • 2026
    General Chair, FaSE4Games'26
    Foundations of Applied Software Engineering for Games, co-located with FSE
  • 2025
    General Chair, FaSE4Games'25
    Foundations of Applied Software Engineering for Games, co-located with FSE
  • 2025
    Organizer, Summer School on Retro Gaming History, Critique, and Development
    Montréal, Canada
  • 2024
    General Chair, FaSE4Games'24
    Foundations of Applied Software Engineering for Games, co-located with FSE
  • 2024
    Organizer, Summer School on Retro Gaming History, Critique, and Development
    Montréal, Canada
  • 2022
    General Chair, SE4Games 2022
    Second International Workshop on Automated Software Engineering for Computer Games, co-located with ASE
  • 2021
    General Chair, SE4Games 2021
    First International Workshop on Automated Software Engineering for Computer Games, co-located with ASE

Editorial Activities

  • 2025
    Guest Editor
    Special Issue on Software Engineering for Games

Invited Talks and Presentations

  • 2025
    Preserving Development Histories: Through Mixed-methods Retro Game Analysis
    Summer School on Retro Gaming History, Critique, and Development, Montréal, Canada
  • 2025
    Adapting to a Generation Leap: Mixed-methods Analysis of Dragon Quest's Evolution from NES to SNES
    International Conference on Games and Narrative, Waterloo, Canada
  • 2024
    Software Engineering for Game Development
    Guest lecture, CSCI 5010G, Ontario Tech University, Canada
  • 2024
    Video Game Testing 101
    Guest lecture, LOG6305, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada
  • 2024
    Creativity Beyond Functionality: An Observational Study of Easter Eggs in Video Games
    Summer School on Retro Gaming History, Critique, and Development, Montréal, Canada
  • 2023
    Video Game Software Engineering: Troubles, Techniques, and Tools
    Research seminar, Université de Montréal, Canada
  • 2020
    Testing Video Games from a Software Engineering Perspective
    Research seminar, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada
  • 2019
    New Opportunities in Game Research
    UNIJUÍ (Brazil), Universidad de Montevideo (Uruguay), and UFMG (Brazil)

International Collaboration

  • 2019
    Research exchange, Brazil
    UFMG, UFRGS, UniRitter and UNIJUÍ
  • 2019
    Research exchange, Uruguay
    Universidad de la República (UdelaR)

Honors and Awards

  • 2021
    • Concordia Accelerator Award, Concordia University

In the Media