During his studies of information technology, Dr. Stephan Weißleder initially focussed on modelling and development. As a software developer at microTOOL GmbH, however, he became interested in the subject of testing. Subsequently, as part of his doctorate studies, he worked intensively with questions relating to quality assurance through model-based testing. With regard to his motivation for the subject, he says: “It can be relatively trivial to generate executable source code from models. It is, however, significantly more difficult to generate test cases with high defect detection potential from models. It is regrettable that the intellectual challenges of model-based testing are still too often underestimated.

Dr. Stephan Weißleder emphasizes that programming is often considered to be constructive, whereas testing is seen as being destructive in nature: „Frequently software testers are not thought to have the same level of experience and skills as developers. This is often due to the fact that quality assurance is regarded as having lower significance compared to software development. Fortunately, there is some change in this attitude that is gradually becoming noticeable – and not just in safety-critical areas”.

Nevertheless, he still sees some scope for potential improvement in many software test related processes. Examples for this are, in his opinion, the consistent standardized terminology and definition of test-relevant terms. He is therefore involved in the “Glossary” working party of the German Testing Board.  

During his studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Dr. Stephan Weißleder concentrated on the practical and theoretical aspects of computer information technology. For his doctoral thesis entitled „Test Models and Coverage Criteria for Automatic Model-Based Test Generation with UML State Machines“ he analyzed models and coverage criteria for model-based test case generation and identified new dependencies between them. He also defined new test generation algorithms. His technical focus today as a scientific member of staff and project leader at the Berlin Fraunhofer Institute FIRST lies in the areas of test technology, modelling, as well as software development and design.