I am a post-doctoral researcher at the Software and Societal Systems Department at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2024, I have received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Saarland University, Germany. My research interests are focused on empirical software engineering, software evolution and maintenance, and social and scientific aspects of software engineering.

In my research, I pay attention to the analysis of coordination and communication in open-source software projects, and I investigate organizational patterns, developer networks, and developer roles in evolving software projects. Furthermore, I am interested in analyzing how software is used in science and how scientific software is developed, especially in the era of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

• I have been honored with the Distinguished Reviewer Award for my contributions to the reviewing process of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE) 2025.
• I have recently been featured in CMU's Postdoc Spotlight column about my research goals and journey as a postdoc. If you would like to find out more, check it out here.

• Empirical software engineering
• Scientific software
• Open-source software development
• Software evolution and maintenance
• Developer networks & developer roles
• Perception of developers' communication behavior
• The roles of humans and AI assistants in the new era of software development

• Distinguished Reviewer Award at the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE) 2025.

• Software Engineering Lab (7-week block course, ca. 200 students, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022,
  chief organizer 2019–2022, reviewer 2019–2023, Saarland University)
• Software Analytics (seminar, WS 2021/22, Saarland University)
• Software Engineering (projects and exercises, ca. 200 students, WS 2019/20, Saarland University)
• Software Engineering Research in the Neuroage (seminar, WS 2019/20, Saarland University)
• Software Engineering Project (supervision of student groups, WS 2016/17, SS 2017, WS 2017/18, SS 2018, SS 2019, University of Passau)
• Human and Social Factors in Software Engineering (seminar, WS 2018/19, University of Passau)
• Foundations of Computer Science (exercise classes, WS 2018/19, University of Passau)
• Paper Reading Group (discussion of software-engineering papers, WS 2018/19, SS 2019, University of Passau)

• ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE), Ideas, Visions, and Reflections track, 2026
• International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR), Technical Papers track, 2026
• IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE), Research Papers track, 2025

• Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE), Springer
• Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), ACM
• Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), IEEE
• Software Quality Journal (SQJ), Springer
• Information Processing and Management (IPM), Elsevier

2026

• Thomas Bock, Will Sutherland, Curtis Atkisson, Anissa Tanweer, James D. Herbsleb, and Bogdan Vasilescu. Understanding the Impact of Research Software Engineers on Scientific Software Development: A Mixed-Methods Study. In International Workshop on Software Engineering and Research Software (SERS). ACM, April 2026. To appear.
   

2025

• Thomas Bock, Niklas Schneider, Angelika Schmid, Sven Apel, and Janet Siegmund. Understanding the Low Inter-Rater Agreement on Aggressiveness on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. Journal of Systems and Software (JSS), 222(4):112339, April 2026.
   

2024

• Thomas Bock. Emerging Organizational Patterns in Evolving Open-Source Software Projects: An Analysis of Developer Activity and Coordination. PhD thesis, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Saarland University, June 2024.
   

2023

• Thomas Bock, Nils Alznauer, Mitchell Joblin, and Sven Apel. Automatic Core-Developer Identification on GitHub: A Validation Study. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), 32(6):138, November 2023.
   
• Mitchell Joblin, Barbara Eckl-Ganser, Thomas Bock, Angelika Schmid, Janet Siegmund, and Sven Apel. Hierarchical and Hybrid Organizational Structures in Open-Source Software Projects: A Longitudinal Study. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), 32(4):86, July 2023.
   

2022

• Thomas Bock, Claus Hunsen, Mitchell Joblin, and Sven Apel. Synchronous Development in Open-Source Projects: A Higher-Level Perspective. Automated Software Engineering, 29(1):3, May 2022. Online version at SharedIt.
   
• Thomas Bock, Angelika Schmid, and Sven Apel. Measuring and Modeling Group Dynamics in Open-Source Software Development: A Tensor Decomposition Approach. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), 31(2):19, April 2022.
   

2016

• Thomas Bock. Synchronous Development in Open-Source Systems: File-based, Feature-based, and Function-based. Master's thesis, Department of Informatics and Mathematics, University of Passau, September 2016.