Red X iconGreen tick iconYellow tick icon
Tony Savarimuthu imageB.E (Hons)(BITS, Pilani, India), M.E (Software Systems)(BITS, Pilani, India), PhD (Otago, NZ)
Professor

Room 3.42, Otago Business School
Tel +64 3 479 5143
Email tony.savarimuthu@otago.ac.nz
Web http://waitaki.otago.ac.nz/~tonyr

Background and interests

Professor Tony Savarimuthu lectures and coordinates COMP 101, the introductory paper in Information Science. Tony has a background of working as a Software Engineer and a Lecturer in India.

His main research interests are in the areas of multi-agent systems (particularly normative multi-agent systems) and Software Engineering. Recently, he has also been active in the area of Information Systems.

His PhD thesis in the area of multi-agent systems investigated mechanisms for norm emergence and norm identification in artificial agent societies. His thesis was placed in the Dean's exceptional thesis list for Otago's School of Business in 2011.

View Tony's PhD thesis (PDF)
Exceptional PhD theses

Education

  • Doctor of Philosophy (Information Science)
    2003–2011, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
  • Master of Engineering (Software Systems)
    2000–2002, BITS, Pilani, Rajasthan, India
  • Bachelor of Engineering (Hons), Chemical
    1996–2000, BITS, Pilani, Rajasthan, India

Papers

Experience

  • Professor (Feb 2023–present)
    Department of Information Science, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
  • Associate Professor (Feb 2017–Feb 2023)
    Department of Information Science, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
  • Senior Lecturer (Feb 2013–Feb 2017)
    Department of Information Science, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
  • Lecturer (Mar 2006–Jan 2013)
    Department of Information Science, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
  • Teaching Fellow (Feb 2004–Feb 2006)
    Department of Information Science, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
  • Teaching Assistant (Dec 2003–Feb 2004)
    Department of Information Science, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
  • Software Engineer (Jul 2002–Aug 2003)
    Coralgrid Software Ltd (now a part of Triple Point Technology, Inc.), Chennai, India
  • Assistant Lecturer (part time, Jul 2002–Aug 2003)
    Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Off Campus centre at Chennai, India
  • Teaching Assistant (Jul 2000–Jun 2002)
    Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India

Research

  • Multi-agent Systems (particularly normative multi-agent systems)
  • Software engineering
  • Information systems
  • Computing Education

Tony is a part of the research group:

Autonomous Systems

Past projects

  • Principal researcher in the ORG grant titled “An experimental framework to facilitate investigations into adaptive wireless networks”, 2007
  • A named researcher in the School of Business grant titled “Interactive and Collaborative Learning in a Distributed Environment”, 2007
  • A named researcher in the CALT grant on Innovation in Teaching, titled “Promoting active learning in lecture rooms in large courses”, 2005

Supervision

Currently supervising

  • Priyanka Patel
  • Mostafa Alwash
  • Pankaj Sharma
  • Amir Sedigh
  • Jithin Cheriyan

Currently co-supervising

  • Saurabh Malgaonkar
  • Amritha Anavankot

Completed PhDs

  • Amala Arul Sharmila Savarimuthu (2006 - 2011), Title: Mechanisms for self-organization of groups in agent societies, Supervisors: Dr. Maryam Purvis, Prof. Martin Purvis, Mr. Tony Savarimuthu

Completed Masters'

  • Jack Kanimea, (MCom, 2008-2009), Title: Integrating Single Sign On and enabling secure interactions in a composite Web Service, Supervisors: Mr. Tony Savarimuthu and Dr. Maryam Purvis, Status: Completed in 2009.
  • Tarik Al-ani (MAppSc, 2010-2011), Title: Android In-Vehicle Infotainment System (AIVI), Supervisors: Mr. Tony Savarimuthu and Dr. Maryam Purvis, Status: Completed in 2011.
  • Honours/Postgraduate diploma (Dissertations cosupervised with Dr. Maryam Purvis)
  • Jinhong Xie (Title: An RFID-based Location-aware Web Application to Enhance User Experience in an Aquarium, completed in 2010)
  • Danica Milic (Title: Dynamic ridesharing and social networking application development on Android mobile phone platform, completed in 2008)
  • Alya Alaali (Title: Mechanisms associated with spread of opinions in human population on a social network, completed in 2007)
  • Anh Le Thu (Title: Current Problems and Tools Support for Testing Distributed Systems, completed in 2006)

Publications

Savarimuthu, B. T. R., Corbett, J., Yasir, M., & Lakshmi, V. (2023). Improving information systems sustainability by applying machine learning to detect and reduce data waste. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 53, 189-213. doi: 10.17705/1CAIS.05308

Freitas dos Santos, T., Cranefield, S., Savarimuthu, B. T. R., Osman, N., & Schorlemmer, M. (2023). Cross-community Adapter Learning (CAL) to understand the evolving meanings of norm violation. In E. Elkind (Ed.), Proceedings of the 32nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI ). (pp. 109-117). International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence. doi: 10.24963/ijcai.2023/13

Anavankot, A., Cranefield, S., & Savarimuthu, B. T. R. (2023). Towards norm entrepreneurship in agent societies. In P. Mathieu, F. Dignum, P. Novais & F. De la Prieta (Eds.), Advances in practical applications of agents, multi-agent systems, and cognitive mimetics, 21st International Conference, PAAMS 2023: Lecture notes in artificial intelligence (Vol. 13955). (pp. 188-199). Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-37616-0_16

Savarimuthu, B. T. R., Zareen, Z., Cheriyan, J., Yasir, M., & Galster, M. (2023). Barriers for social inclusion in online software engineering communities: A study of offensive language use in Gitter projects. Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE). (pp. 217-222). New York, USA: ACM. doi: 10.1145/3593434.3593463

Sharma, P. N., Savarimuthu, B. T. R., & Stanger, N. (2023). How are decisions made in open source software communities? Uncovering rationale from python email repositories. Journal of Software: Evolution & Process. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1002/smr.2526

Back to top