Catarina Gamboa

PhD candidate in Software Engineering, CMU and U. Lisbon

I make program verification usable for developers and AI agents.

Graduating spring/summer 2027.
Open to research and engineering roles in developer tools and AI for code.

CV GitHub LinkedIn Google Scholar
catarinavgamboa@gmail.com
First-author papers ICSE 2023 PLDI 2025 ASE 2026 all CORE A* Industry Two Uber internships (2025, 2026) and one at Gitar

What I work on

1. Understand

Why developers avoid liquid types

Liquid types catch more bugs, yet few developers use them. We watched 19 people learn and use LiquidHaskell and found nine barriers, from error messages to proof engineering.

PLDI 2025 project page
2. Build

LiquidJava

Liquid types for Java, designed with Java developers. In a study with 30 of them, every one found the bug with LiquidJava, and all 30 said they'd use it.

ICSE 2023 project page
3. Automate

Barista

Writing specifications is the hardest barrier, so LLM agents do it. 87% precision, 4.2× faster than an expert, about $2.20 per class.

ASE 2026 project page

Selected papers

Also on LLMs and code

All papers and talks
Catarina Gamboa presenting Usability-Oriented Design of Liquid Types for Java to a full room at ICSE 2023.
Presenting LiquidJava to a full room at ICSE 2023, Melbourne

Industry and teaching

  • UberPhD intern, 2026

    Verifying agent-generated code with the AI Verification & Efficiency team (Developer Platform).

  • UberPhD intern, 2025

    Agentic LLM workflows with custom MCP tools to automate Python library migrations.

  • GitarResearch intern, 2024

    Static analysis across languages (def-use chains) and fuzzing-based testing.

  • CMU and U. LisbonTeaching assistant

    API Design with Joshua Bloch at CMU. Introductory programming for 100+ students at U. Lisbon.

More about me

Awards

  • Best PhD PosterLASIGE 2026
  • Best Paper, as co-authorLLM4Code 2025
  • Best Student PosterINForum 2021, for LiquidJava
The SPLASH 2023 student volunteer team posing on a staircase with a SPLASH sign.
The SPLASH 2023 student volunteers

Community

I co-chaired the student volunteers at SPLASH 2023 and 2024, 40 to 50 people each year, and wrote a guide for the chairs who came next. I've also served on artifact evaluation committees for PLDI 2023 and SAS 2026.

Outside research, I play flute in a Portuguese folk group.

Outreach and activities