Introduction
Zixuan “Steve” Feng’s academic journey began thousands of miles away in northwest China and will soon carry him to the other side of the United States, where he’ll start his tenure as an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. The transition marks the culmination of more than a decade of persistence, one that transformed an international student with limited English into a rising scholar in software engineering.
“I grew up on a university campus,” Feng said, recalling his childhood in China, where his mother was an art professor and the family lived in faculty housing. “That’s probably why I always wanted to be in academia.”
That early exposure planted a seed, but the path to a faculty career would prove anything but straightforward.
PhD student in computer science
Blue Primary, Yellow Secondary
A Year to Find His Voice
When Feng arrived at Oregon State University, he did not find himself in a lecture hall or lab. Instead, he spent an entire year in the INTO OSU program learning English. “My English level was very low,” he said. “So, I finished one year just learning English, then entered the pathway program.”
Even after progressing into regular coursework, the challenges remained intense. “One year of English learning is not enough to fully understand everything in lectures,” he said. “That was very rough.”
Still, Feng pushed forward. As an undergraduate, he immersed himself in computer science and business coursework, eventually earning a bachelor’s degree in computer science before moving on to graduate study. Along the way, he learned not only programming fundamentals but how to navigate a new culture, a new academic system, and a field he had little exposure to before arriving in the United States.
“I didn’t have any programming experience before college,” he said. “So, even simple concepts took me a long time to understand.”
What he lacked in early experience, he made up for in determination. Feng continued on at OSU, completing a master’s degree in computer science.
Finding purpose in open source
While he knew he wanted to continue in academia, Feng sought a new challenge for his doctoral studies.
He found the right fit when he began working with Professor Anita Sarma, whose research focuses on the human and social aspects of software development. Feng initially volunteered in her group, eager to explore a new direction. His curiosity soon evolved into a doctoral degree path. Over the past five years, Feng has built a research portfolio centered on the socio-technical dynamics of software development.
A major focus of his work has been the open-source software community. Drawing on large datasets from public repositories, Feng studies how contributors interact, how mentorship happens, often informally, and how invisible “glue work” sustains projects. His research spans questions of diversity, inclusion, productivity, and collaboration.
“Open source is not just about writing code,” Feng said. “There are all these invisible contributions like mentoring and community building that make everything else work.”
Those insights have carried beyond academia. Feng has presented his findings at industry venues like the Linux Plumbers Conference and the Open Source Summit, translating research into practical guidance for practitioners.
The future of software in the age of AI
Feng’s experience also includes a research internship at Microsoft, where he collaborated across disciplines, including medicine and software engineering, to examine how teams build complex systems. There, he observed a key transformation underway in the field. “With AI’s help, the boundary between roles is blurring,” he said. “Researchers are building software, and developers are doing machine learning.”
That observation has become central to his current work on generative AI. Feng is exploring how tools like large language models are reshaping software development, including changes to workflows, shifts in collaboration patterns, and even contributing to developer burnout. His recent research examines both the productivity impacts of AI and the challenges it introduces for developers.
“We’re trying to understand not just how AI helps,” he said, “but what new problems it creates.”
Now, as Feng prepares to graduate with his Ph.D. in software engineering — his third degree from OSU — he is looking ahead to the next chapter at VCU where he will continue his work on collaborative software systems and AI-driven development at the university’s Software Engineering Center.
For Feng, the milestone is deeply meaningful. It represents not only academic achievement but the culmination of an arduous journey.
“I came here with very little English, no programming experience, and everything was new,” he said. “Now I’m going to be a professor. It’s been a long road.”
