Biography

Rifat Ara Shams is a final year Ph.D. researcher under the Department of Software Systems and Cybersecurity and the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University. She is working on "Operationalizing Human Values in Mobile Applications" at OVIS Lab which is affiliated with HumaniSE Lab at Monash University. Her Ph.D. supervisors are Professor Jon Whittle, Associate Professor Gillian Oliver, Dr. Mojtaba Shahin, and Dr. Waqar Hussain. Her research interests are Software Engineering, Human Values, Human Values in Software Engineering, Human and Social Factors in Software Engineering, Empirical Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Values and Ethics in AI, Mixed-methods Research.

She is awarded the prestigious PROTIC scholarship which is a joint project of Monash University and Oxfam Bangladesh. In this project, she is working on “Operationalizing Values in Mobile Applications: A Mixed-Methods Empirical Study with Agriculture Apps for Bangladeshi Female Farmers”.

Her research achievements started in 2016 with an international research award, “Young Scientist” for her contributions to Computer Science research. Following this trend, she received many awards for her academic performance, research, and leadership skills. She is the runner-up of Monash FIT 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) 2021 and also the runner-up of Monash FIT 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) 2020.

Since her Ph.D. journey started back in 2018, she has been working on several research papers on the area of "Human Values in Software Engineering" with the OVIS and PROTIC teams. She has published six journal papers (in TSE, IST etc.), nine conferences papers (ICSE, ESEC/FSE, RE, HICSS, ESEM etc.), two posters, and one doctoral symposium proposal. Currently, two of her journal papers are under review in TSE and she is also working in six more journal papers. Her two papers have been awarded the prestigious badges "Reusable" and "Available" for the artifacts in ICSE 2020.

Besides her own research works, she worked as a Program Committee member in ICSEA 2021 and as a Shadow PC Member in MSR 2021 and ACM COMPASS 2021. She also worked as a reviewer in the IEEE Software: Special Issues on Digital Twins, 2021 and the workshop on HCSE&CS, co-hosted by ASE 2021.

Besides these research works, she is also involved in voluntary activities. She is the Organizer of the Monash Software Research Students (MSRS) Meetups where the target audiences are the early career researchers (Monash University Faculty of IT staff, PhD, MPhil and Masters students). She also worked as a student volunteer in ICSE 2021 and RE'21, and also going to work in ASE 2021 in November. She is also a tech-blog writer.

She has been also playing a leadership role in various activities. For example, she is the admin of Software Engineering Researchers Australasia (SERA) - PhD Community, an active member of Australian Software Engineering Researchers (OZSER), Anita Borg Community- Women in STEM, Australian Academy of Science- STEM Women, Monash Software Force (MSF), and Monash Graduate Association (MGA) Women’s Community.

Rifat Ara Shams completed her Bachelors and Masters achieving first-class (Batch Topper) from the Department of Information and Communication Engineering, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh. She is a Gold Medalist and a recipient of the "Prime Minister Award" in Bangladesh for her outstanding results. After completing her Masters, she worked as a Lecturer at Stamford University, Bangladesh (November 2012 - January 2015) and as a Senior Lecturer at Daffodil International University, Bangladesh (February 2015 - February 2018).

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