Prof. Dr. Marcela Ruiz
Prof. Dr. Marcela Ruiz
ZHAW
School of Engineering
Forschungsschwerpunkt Software Engineering
Obere Kirchgasse 2 / Steinberggasse 12/14
8400 Winterthur
Work at ZHAW
Position
- Head of Research Group Software Engineering
- Senior Lecturer and Researcher with focus on Design of Methods, tools and techniques for Low-Code No-Code Software Development
Focus
Development of Low-Code No-Code Tools for Software Development
Teaching
- Software Quality Assurance and verification
- Requirements Engineering and Software Architecture
- Algorithms and Data Structures
- No Code & Low Code Software Development
Experience
- External collaborator
Centre of Software Production Methods (PROS), Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain.
08 / 2016 - today - Assistant Professor
Utrecht University
09 / 2016 - 06 / 2019 - Research fellow in software engineering
Centre of Software Production Methods (PROS), Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain.
2011 - 2016 - Software developer and information systems engineer in the context of industry projects
TECCON Mediterranea, S.L., Care Technologies, and Integranova at Research Centre on Software Production Methods (PROS), Spain
2009 - 2011 - Project manager and systems analyst
Grupo SURA, insurance, Colombia
2007 - 2009 - Research fellow in software engineering
National University of Colombia, Medellin.
2005 - 2007
Education and Continuing education
Education
Leadership at ZHAW
Zurich University of Applied Sciences
07 / 2025 - 07 / 2026
Network
Membership of networks
- SheroES - community for women in tech at the School of Engineering (Intranet only
- Association for information and communication technology (ICT) as well as digitization in the region Winterthur (WinLink)
- Swiss Informatics Society, working group on Business Informatics
- Swiss Association for Software Quality. Requirements Engineering Expert Group
- Zurich UAS (University of Applied Science) Racing, School of Engineering
- ZHAW Digital
- MDENet: The expert network for Model-Driven Engineering
- DIZH Fellowship
- Swiss IT Intelligence Communities
ORCID digital identifier
Awards
- Digital Shaper Award: Team "Bridging the communication gap"
ZHAW Digital
12 / 2025 - Digital Shaper Award
ZHAW Digital
12 / 2024
Social media
Media presence
Interview by ZHAW Digital on DIZH Fellowship, Thursday, 29 April 2021: When a discussion leads to developing a software [Link to interview: www.zhaw.ch/en/about-us/news/news-releases/news-detail/event-news/wenn-durchs-sprechen-software-entsteht/]
Projects
- Sensory Reweighting, Muscle Synergies and Triggers for Freezing of Gait in Parkinson’s Disease / Team member / ongoing
- AI-SQUARE: Integrated Decision-Support Platform for Software Staging in DevOps / Project leader / completed
- Machine Learning for Software User Interface Testing / Project leader / completed
- Exploiting User Journeys and Testing Automation for Supporting Efficient Energy Service Platforms / Team member / completed
- DevOps for Complex Cyber-physical Systems of Systems / Team member / completed
- Can virtual reality systems help us to design software as we talk? / Project leader / completed
- Interscriber: Turning Dialogues into Actionable Insights / Project leader / completed
Selected publications
- M. Ruiz and B. Hasselmann, "Can we design software as we talk? : a research idea," in Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling, 2020, pp. 327–334, doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-49418-6_22.
- J. D. Mosquera Tobón, M. Ruiz, M. Wahler, and O. Pastor, "Understanding modelling assistance in low-code/no-code tools : an empirical study and the AssiStarMe framework," in Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 29th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems, Oct. 2026, pp. 258–268, doi: 10.1145/3822455.3830321.
- D. Mosquera, M. Ruiz, O. Mann, and M. Hanin, "AI-SQUARE : knowledge graphs for requirements-driven software staging management," Apr. 2025, doi: 10.21256/zhaw-36033.
- D. Mosquera, M. Ruiz, L. Willi, T. Riedel, O. Mann, and M. Hanin, "Eliciting requirements for a conversational agent to assist the software staging process in Devops," in 2026 IEEE 34th International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE), Sep. 2026, pp. 316–327, doi: 10.1109/RE68928.2026.00033.
- D. Mosquera, M. Ruiz, and O. Pastor, "Ontology-based NLP tool for tracing software requirements and conceptual models : an empirical study," Requirements Engineering, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 341–369, Jun. 2025, doi: 10.1007/s00766-025-00447-4.
Publications
Articles in scientific journal, peer-reviewed
- D. Mosquera, M. Ruiz, and O. Pastor, "Ontology-based NLP tool for tracing software requirements and conceptual models : an empirical study," Requirements Engineering, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 341–369, Jun. 2025, doi: 10.1007/s00766-025-00447-4.
- D. Mosquera, M. Ruiz, O. Pastor, and J. Spielberger, "Understanding the landscape of software modelling assistants for MDSE tools : a systematic mapping," Information and Software Technology, vol. 173, no. 107492, 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.infsof.2024.107492.
- M. Ruiz, J. Y. Hu, and F. Dalpiaz, "Why don't we trace? : a study on the barriers to software traceability in practice," Requirements Engineering, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 619–637, 2023, doi: 10.1007/s00766-023-00408-9.
- E. Díaz, J. I. Panach, S. Rueda, M. Ruiz, and O. Pastor, "Are requirements elicitation sessions influenced by participants' gender? : an empirical experiment," Science of Computer Programming, vol. 204, no. 102595, Dec. 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.scico.2020.102595.
Book chapters, peer-reviewed
O. Pastor, R. Noel, I. Panach, and M. Ruiz, "The LiteStrat modelling method : towards the alignment of strategy and code," in Domain-Specific Conceptual Modeling : Concepts, Methods and ADOxx Tools, D. Karagiannis, L. Moonkun, K. Hinkelmann, and W. Utz, Eds. Cham: Springer, 2022, pp. 141–159.
Written conference contributions, peer-reviewed
- J. D. Mosquera Tobón, M. Ruiz, M. Wahler, and O. Pastor, "Understanding modelling assistance in low-code/no-code tools : an empirical study and the AssiStarMe framework," in Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 29th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems, Oct. 2026, pp. 258–268, doi: 10.1145/3822455.3830321.
- D. Mosquera, M. Ruiz, L. Willi, T. Riedel, O. Mann, and M. Hanin, "Eliciting requirements for a conversational agent to assist the software staging process in Devops," in 2026 IEEE 34th International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE), Sep. 2026, pp. 316–327, doi: 10.1109/RE68928.2026.00033.
- D. Mosquera, M. Ruiz, and A. Martakos, "A domain-specific language for specifying requirement patterns for model-driven software development," in 2025 IEEE 33rd International Requirements Engineering Conference Workshops (REW), Oct. 2025, pp. 314–324, doi: 10.1109/REW66121.2025.00047.
- D. Mosquera, M. Ruiz, O. Mann, and M. Hanin, "AI-SQUARE : knowledge graphs for requirements-driven software staging management," Apr. 2025, doi: 10.21256/zhaw-36033.
- A. C. Gieshoff, M. Ruiz, M. Schuler, and M. Wahler, "Bridging the communication gap : a pilot course on interdisciplinary requirements engineering," in Joint Proceedings of REFSQ 2025 Workshops, Doctoral Symposium, Posters & Tools Track, and Education and Training Track co-located with 31st International Conference on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ 2025), Apr. 2025, doi: 10.21256/zhaw-33184.
- M. Ruiz and P. Soffer, Eds., Advanced information systems engineering workshops : CAiSE 2023 International Workshops, Zaragoza, Spain, June 12-16, 2023, proceedings. Cham: Springer, 2023.
- J. D. Mosquera Tobón, M. Ruiz, O. Pastor, and J. Spielberger, "Ontology-based automatic reasoning and NLP for tracing software requirements into models with the OntoTrace tool," in Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality : REFSQ 2023, Apr. 2023, pp. 140–158, doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-29786-1_10.
- R. Noel, J. I. Panach, M. Ruiz, and O. Pastor, "Stra2Bis : a model-driven method for aligning business strategy and business processes," in Conceptual Modeling, Oct. 2022, pp. 255–270, doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-17995-2_18.
- M. Wahler, E. Conte, M. Frick, D. Mosquera, and M. Ruiz, "Rapid software prototyping from business artifacts," in Short Paper Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Agile Methods for Information Systems Engineering (Agil-ISE 2022), Jun. 2022, vol. 3134, pp. 9–14, doi: 10.21256/zhaw-25019.
- D. Mosquera, M. Ruiz, O. Pastor, J. Spielberger, and L. Fievet, "OntoTrace : a tool for supporting trace generation in software development by using ontology-based automatic reasoning," in Intelligent Information Systems, Jun. 2022, pp. 73–81, doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-07481-3_9.
- D. Mosquera, A. Martakos, and M. Ruiz, "Experiences from developing a web crawler using a model-driven development tool : emerging opportunities," in Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling, May 2022, pp. 336–343, doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-07475-2_23.
- D. Mosquera, M. Ruiz, O. Pastor, and J. Spielberger, "Assisted-modeling requirements for model-driven development tools," in Research Challenges in Information Science, May 2022, pp. 458–474, doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-05760-1_27.
- X. Franch and M. Ruiz, "Goal-oriented models for teaching and understanding data structures," in Conceptual Modeling, 2021, pp. 227–241, doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-89022-3_19.
- R. Noel, M. Ruiz, I. Panach, and O. Pastor, "Beyond conventional model-driven development : from strategy to code," in 14th International iStar Workshop 2021, Oct. 2021, pp. 49–55, doi: 10.21256/zhaw-24373.
- R. Noel, I. Panach, M. Ruiz, and O. Pastor, "The LiteStrat method : towards strategic model-driven development," in ISD2021 Proceedings, Aug. 2021, [Online]. Available: https://aisel.aisnet.org/isd2014/proceedings2021/managingdevops/11/.
- G. Moretti, M. Ruiz, and J. Spielberger, "Improving performance and scalability of model-driven generated web applications : an experience report," in Research Challenges in Information Science, 2020, pp. 285–301, doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-50316-1_17.
- M. Ruiz and B. Hasselmann, "Can we design software as we talk? : a research idea," in Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling, 2020, pp. 327–334, doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-49418-6_22.
- M. Ruiz, J. Ralyté, and X. Franch, "The use of iStar in Situational Method Engineering : an ongoing study," in Thirteenth International iStar Workshop, Aug. 2020, pp. 37–42, doi: 10.21256/zhaw-24495.
Written conference contributions, not peer-reviewed
S. Panichella and M. Ruiz, "Requirements-collector : automating requirements specification from elicitation sessions and user feedback," in 2020 IEEE 28th International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE), 2020, pp. 404–407, doi: 10.1109/RE48521.2020.00057.
Other publications
M. Ruiz, "Speeding up digital transformation by automating software development," Mitteilungen : Mitteilungen der Alumni ZHAW, Engineering & Architecture, no. 72, pp. 52–57, 2022, [Online]. Available: https://www.alumni-zhaw.ch/data/documents/2022/03/22/4353-6239b13e39106.pdf.