Rate My Professor Claudia Szabo

Professor Claudia Szabo is a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Information Technology at the University of Adelaide, within the College of Engineering and Information Technology. She earned her PhD in 2011 from the National University of Singapore and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the Politehnica Institute of Bucharest, Romania. Her academic career at the University of Adelaide commenced in 2011 as an Associate Lecturer, advancing to Lecturer from 2013 to 2016, Senior Lecturer from 2017 to 2018, Associate Professor from 2019, and Professor. She has served in leadership capacities as Director of Digital Technologies in the Faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences since 2019 and Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion from 2014 to 2019. Szabo leads the Complex Systems program in the Centre for Distributed and Intelligent Technologies and is eligible to supervise Masters and PhD students.

Her primary research interests focus on complex systems and their applications to domains including biology, social networks, and Defence. Key areas include autonomous decision making in complex adaptive systems under contested environments, defining and measuring emergent properties in systems of systems, self-organisation, and adaptability. In computing education, she investigates curriculum design, cognitive load theories, and software engineering best practices. Notable publications include 'Web services composition: A decade’s overview' (2014, Information Sciences, 604 citations), 'Introductory programming: a systematic literature review' (2018, 558 citations), 'Educational data mining and learning analytics in programming: Literature review and case studies' (2015, 416 citations), and 'Formalization of weak emergence in multiagent systems' (2015, ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation). With over 4,500 citations on Google Scholar, her contributions have shaped AI-driven decision making and computing education. Szabo has secured involvement in grants exceeding $28 million since 2020, including the Praetorian VENATOR UAS System ($7.3 million, 2025-2027) and Hadrian Wall ($5.85 million, 2025-2026). Awards include the 2024 AAUT Teaching Excellence Award, 2021 Faculty Learning and Teaching Award, 2018 Stephen Cole the Elder Award, and 2017 SA Science Excellence STEM Educator of the Year.