Re: TAB self-nomination

On 12/12/25 17:38, Sasha Levin wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 13, 2025 at 08:42:21AM +0900, Julia Lawall wrote:
>> I'd like to nominate myself to serve on the TAB.

Awesome. We managed to convince you to throw your hat in the ring.

>>
>> I have been developing and maintaining the C code transformation tool
>> Coccinelle since the mid 2000s, and have been contributing to the Linux
>> kernel since then, both with patches, and by pre-reviewing reports
>> generated by Coccinelle via 0-day.  More recently, I have been looking at
>> the Linux kernel task scheduler, both in terms of studying the performance
>> of applications induced by the scheduler as it evolves and in terms of
>> verification of the code that implements it.  I have given talks about the
>> scheduling work at various conferences.
>>
>> My main interests in the context of the TAB are in helping develop
>> initiatives that improve code quality and code understandability.  In
>> particular, in my recent work on trying to understand the Linux kernel task
>> scheduler, I can see how the current strategies for documenting the source
>> code are not always at the right granularity to enable a newcomer to the
>> subsystem to understand the underlying design choices.  I hope to be able
>> to support initiatives for designing Linux kernel documentation,
>> formalization of the algorithms used in the code, introduction of safer
>> languages and coding styles, and approaches to understand the root causes
>> of performance issues and improvements.
>>
>> Finally, my career has been spent in academia, and I have been very
>> grateful for the opportunity to contribute to and learn from the Linux
>> kernel community in this context.  Today is an exciting time of change in
>> software development due to the increasing capabilities of AI.  This is
>> currently being discussed in the kernel community, but is also the subject
>> of extensive research in academia, particularly in the software engineering
>> community.  Some of this research is already motivated by and evaluated on
>> the Linux kernel.  I hope to help provide a pathway for more direct and
>> fruitful collaboration between researchers and the Linux kernel community,
>> to help put ideas into practice, and to help inspire new research advances.
>>
>> Julia Lawall
> 
> I've worked with Julia for over a decade now, and she's had a big impact on my
> career and on me personally.
> 
> I first got to know Julia through Coccinelle. I thought that it's powered by
> magic.
> 
> Julia brought up the idea of using machine learning to find patches that should
> go to stable. That project became AUTOSEL, and it's helped us backport
> thousands of fixes that would've been missed otherwise. Working with her taught
> me a lot about taking research and making it useful for actual kernel work.
> 
> To me, Julia is a role model. She's always trying to help the people around
> her. Through outreach, through mentoring, through research. She's impacted
> hundreds of people in this community, directly and indirectly.

I couldn't have said it better. Julia is my role model as well. She is ready
to help and truly cares for new developers, taking the time to help.

> 
> She takes the time with newcomers, and that matters. It mattered to me when I
> was new.
> 
> I've been lucky to serve three terms on the TAB, and I want to thank everyone
> for trusting me with that. I'm not running again, but I really hope Julia gets
> a seat.

Thank you Sasha - we are going to miss you on TAB. Hope you will come back to
serve in the future.

thanks,
-- Shuah