David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science

Professor Chengnian Sun and his collaborators Vu Le and Zhendong Su have received the Most Influential Paper Award at OOPSLA 2025, part of the ACM SIGPLAN SPLASH conference.

Their paper, Finding Deep Compiler Bugs via Guided Stochastic Program Mutation, presented originally at OOPSLA 2015, was recognized for introducing a novel Equivalence Modulo Inputs mutation strategy that exposed previously undetected bugs in production compilers.

“Computers loom large in the world of tomorrow,” declared an October 1968 article in the University of Waterloo Quarterly. “They will help educate children, run complex industrial plants, revolutionize the communications industry; they will drastically alter the way we shop for food, clothing and other merchandise.”

“I didn’t want to go to Waterloo,” Helen Dong says with a grin. “My older brother went here, and even though I look up to him I always wanted to do my own thing. But my mom convinced me I should go, and I’m so, so glad I did.”

Dong is this year’s winner of the K. D. Fryer Gold Medal, which is given to a student in the Mathematics Faculty each year who exemplifies both high academic standing and good citizenship.