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Dr. Mikhail Auguston

1948–2025

"Behavior is the king! Keep going!"

Dr. Mikhail Auguston was a visionary computer scientist, esteemed professor, and the creator of the Monterey Phoenix behavior modeling framework. Born on April 16, 1948, in Riga, Latvia, Mikhail’s early life was shaped by intellectual curiosity and resilience. A voracious reader during childhood illnesses, he cultivated a habit of independent thinking that defined his career. He earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Latvia, where he taught and proudly established Ada Lovelace Day to honor top computer science students. He later earned a second Ph.D. degree in computer science from the V.M. Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics in Ukraine.

Mikhail’s career flourished in the post-Soviet era, when he seized opportunities to share his expertise globally. After a year at a Swedish university, he joined New Mexico State University and later found a permanent home at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California. At NPS, he served as a tenured professor for 16 years, retiring as professor emeritus. His groundbreaking work on Monterey Phoenix, a system for modeling and analyzing complex behaviors, has gained widespread adoption in major U.S. universities, government, and industry, cementing his impact on systems engineering and software development. Even after his 2012 cancer diagnosis, Mikhail continued to teach, mentor students, and advance Monterey Phoenix with unwavering dedication. His passion for elegant solutions and rigorous thought inspired colleagues and students alike.

Beyond his professional achievements, Mikhail was a devoted family man. Known for his generous spirit, Mikhail celebrated life’s milestones, big and small, with joy and optimism.

Dr. Auguston’s contributions to computer science and systems modeling will continue to shape the field for generations. His work on Monterey Phoenix remains a testament to his brilliance and commitment to advancing knowledge. He continues to be deeply missed, and forever remembered.

Dr. Auguston's

Research Projects

Behavior Models for Systems and Software Architecture

  • Mikhail Auguston, "Software Architecture Built from Behavior Models", ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, Vol. 34, No 5, September 2009

  • Mikhail Auguston, “Monterey Phoenix, or How to Make Software Architecture Executable”, OOPSLA’09/Onward conference, OOPSLA Companion, October 2009, pp.1031-1038

  • Mikhail Auguston, Clifford Whitcomb, “System Architecture Specification Based on Behavior Models”, in Proceedings of the 15th ICCRTS Conference (International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium), Santa Monica, CA, June 22-24, 2010

  • Mikhail Auguston, Clifford Whitcomb, and Kristin Giammarco, "A New Approach to System and Software Architecture Specification Based on Behavior Models", 3rd International Conference on Model-Based Systems Engineering, IC-MBSE 2010, September 27-28, 2010. George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia

  • Rivera, J., Auguston, M., Finkbine, R. Applying Architecture Modeling Methodology to the Naval Gunship Software Safety Domain, 23rd Annual Systems & Software Technology Conference (SSTC 2011), Salt Lake City, Utah, 16 - 19 May 2011

  • Mikhail Auguston, Clifford Whitcomb, "Behavior Models and Composition for Software and Systems Architecture",  ICSSEA 2012, 24th International Conference on SOFTWARE & SYSTEMS ENGINEERING and their APPLICATIONS, Telecom ParisTech, Paris, October 23-25, 2012

  • Jiexin Zhang, Yang Liu, Mikhail Auguston, Jun Sun and Jin Song Dong, “Using Monterey Phoenix to Formalize and Verify System Architectures”, 19th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference APSEC 2012, December 4 – 7, 2012, Hong Kong

  • Kristin Giammarco, Mikhail Auguston, Well, You didn’t Say not to! A Formal Systems Engineering Approach to Teaching an Unruly Architecture Good Behavior,  Complex Adaptive Systems Conference, November 13 - 15, 2013, Baltimore, MD

  • Monica Farah-Stapleton, Mikhail Auguston, Behavioral Modeling of Software Intensive System Architectures, Complex Adaptive Systems Conference, November 13 - 15, 2013, Baltimore, MD

  • Songzheng Song,  Jiexin Zhang,  Yang Liu,  Mikhail Auguston,  Jun Sun,  Jin Song Dong,  Tieming Chen, Formalizing and verifying stochastic system architectures using Monterey Phoenix, Software & Systems Modeling, Springer Berlin Heidelberg,  April 2014, pp.1-19.

  • Kristin Giammarco, Mikhail Auguston, W. Clifton Baldwin, Ji'on Crump, Monica Farah-Stapleton: Controlling Design Complexity with the Monterey Phoenix Approach. Complex Adaptive Systems Conference, Philadelphia, PA, USA, November 3-5, 2014, pp.204-209.

  • Mikhail Auguston, Behavior models for software architecture, NPS Technical Report NPS-CS-14-003, November 2014

  • Whitcomb, Clifford A., Mikhail Auguston, and Kristin Giammarco. "Composition of Behavior Models for Systems Architecture", Chapter 14 in Modeling and Simulation Support for System of Systems Engineering Applications (2015), (Editors: Larry B. Rainey, Andreas Tolk), John Wiley & Sons, pp. 361- 391.

  • Mikhail Auguston, Kristin Giammarco, W. Clifton Baldwin, Ji’on Crump, Monica Farah-Stapleton, Modeling and Verifying Business Processes with Monterey Phoenix, 2015 Conference on Systems Engineering Research, MARCH 17-19, 2015, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA

MP editor/trace generator is now available on a public server. There are several preloaded MP examples under IMPORT menu.
Dr. K. Giammarco’s website for the MP project at NPS Dept. of Systems Engineering: NPS MP website (maintained from 2015-2025)

Automated test generation for reactive and real time systems based on environment models and event grammars

  • Mikhail Auguston, James Bret Michael, Man-Tak Shing, Environment Behavior Models for Scenario Generation and Testing Automation, in Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Advances in Model-Based Software Testing (A-MOST'05), the 27th International Conference on Software Engineering ICSE’05, May 15-16, 2005,  St. Louis, USA

  • Mikhail Auguston, James Bret Michael, Man-Tak Shing, Test Automation and Safety Assessment in Rapid Systems Prototyping, in the Proceedings of  16th IEEE International Workshop on Rapid System Prototyping, June 8-10, 2005, Montreal, Canada, pp.188-194

  • Mikhail Auguston, James Bret Michael, Man-Tak Shing, and David L. Floodeen, “Using Attributed Event Grammar Environment Models for Automated Test Generation and Software Risk Assessment of System-of-Systems”, in the Proceedings of 2005 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Special Session on Recent Advances in Engineering Systems-of-Systems to Support Joint and Coalition Warfighters, October 10-12, 2005, The Big Island, Hawaii, USA

  • M.Auguston, B.Michael, M.Shing, Environment Behavior Models for Automation of Testing and Assessment of System Safety, Information and Software Technology, Elsevier, Volume 48, Issue 10 , October 2006, pp. 971-980

  • M.Auguston, “New Directions in  Software Quality Assurance Automation”, 14th International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium, 14th ICCRTS, June 15-17, 2009, Washington, DC

Debugging Automation, Assertion Languages

  • Auguston M., "FORMAN - Program Formal Annotation Language," in Proceedings of 5th Israel Conference on Computer Systems and Software Engineering, Herclia, May 27-28, IEEE Computer Society Press, 1991, pp.149-154

  • Peter Fritzson, Mikhail Auguston, Nahid Shahmehri, "Using Assertions in Declarative and Operational Models for Automated Debugging," in Proceedings of 5th International Conference on Software Engineering and Its Applications, Toulouse, France, December 7-11, 1992, IEEE Computer Society Press

  • Mikhail Auguston, Peter Fritzson, "PARFORMAN - an Assertion Language for Specifying Behavior When Debugging Parallel Applications," in Proceedings of Euromicro Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Processing, Gran Canaria, January 27-29, 1993. IEEE Computer Society Press

  • M.Auguston, "A Language for Debugging Automation," in Proceedings of 6th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, SEKE'94, Jurmala, June 22-24, 1994, pp.108-115

  • Peter Fritzson, Mikhail Auguston, Nahid Shahmehri, "Using Assertions in Declarative and Operational Models for Automated Debugging," Journal of Systems and Software, vol. 25(3), pp.223-232, June 1994

  • M.Auguston, "Program Behavior Model Based on Event Grammar and Its Application for Debugging Automation," in Proceedings of 2nd International Workshop on Automated and Algorithmic Debugging, AADEBUG'95, Saint-Malo, France, May 22-24, 1995 

  • Mikhail Auguston, Peter Fritzson, "PARFORMAN - an Assertion Language for Specifying Behavior when Debugging Parallel Applications," International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, vol.6, no.4, 1996, pp.609-640

  • M.Auguston, A.Gates, M.Lujan, "Defining a Program Behavior Model for Dynamic Analyzers," Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, SEKE'97, Madrid, Spain, June 1997, pp.257-262

  • M. Auguston, "Building Program Behavior Models," in Proceedings of European Conference on Artificial Intelligence ECAI-98, Workshop on Spatial and Temporal Reasoning, Brighton, England, August 23-28, 1998

  • M.Auguston, "Lightweight Semantics Models for Program Testing and Debugging Automation," in Proceedings of 7th Monterey Workshop: Modeling Software System Structures in a Fastly Moving Scenario, Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy, June 13-16, 2000, pp.23-31, on-line proceedings at http://www.disi.unige.it/person/ReggioG/PROCEEDINGS/

  • M.Auguston, "Tools for Program Dynamic Analysis, Testing, and Debugging Based on Event Grammars," in Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, Chicago, Illinois, July 6-8, 2000, pp.159-166

  • M.Auguston, Assertion Checker for the C Programming Language based on Computations over event traces, in Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Algorithmic and Automatic Debugging, AADEBUG'2000, Munich, Germany, August 28-30, 2000, pp.90-99

  • M.Auguston, C.Jeffery, S.Underwood, A Framework for Automatic Debugging, in Proceedings of the 17th IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, September 23-27, 2002, Edinburgh, UK, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.217-222

  • C.Jeffery, M.Auguston, S.Underwood, Towards Fully Automatic Execution Monitoring, in Proceedings of the Monterey Workshop 2002 "Radical Innovations of Software and Systems Engineering in the Future", sponsored by US Army Research Office and NSF, Venice, Italy, October 7-11, 2002, pp.232-243.

  • C.Jeffery, M.Auguston, "Some axioms and issues in the UFO dynamic analysis framework", in the Proceedings of Workshop on Dynamic Analysis, ICSE'03, 25th International Conference on Software Engineering, Portland, Oregon, May 3-11, 2003, pp.45-48. Available online at http://www.cs.iupui.edu/uniFrame/pubs-openaccess/WODA2003.pdf

  • Mikhail Auguston, Clinton Jeffery, Scott Underwood, A Monitoring Language for Run Time and Post-Mortem Behavior Analysis and Visualization, in the Proceedings of 5th International Workshop on Algorithmic and Automatic Debugging AADEBUG 2003, Ghent, Belgium, September 8-10, 2003, pp. 41-54  (also on the CoRR web site at  http://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0310025)

  • C.Jeffery, M.Auguston, S.Underwood, Towards Fully Automatic Execution Monitoring, in Proceedings of Radical Innovations of Software and Systems Engineering in the Future: 9th International Workshop, RISSEF 2002, Venice, Italy, Oct.  2002, Revised Papers (Editors:  Martin Wirsing, Alexander Knapp, Simonetta Balsamo), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer Verlag, Vol. 2941, March 2004, pp. 204 - 218

  • Mikhail Auguston, Mark Trakhtenbrot, Run Time Monitoring of Reactive System Models, in Proceedings of Second International Workshop on Dynamic Analysis WODA 2004, the 26th International Conference on Software Engineering ICSE 2004, Edinburgh, Scotland, 25 May 2004, pp. 68-75 http://www.cs.virginia.edu/woda2004/proceedings.pdf

Security Models for Static Analysis and Verification of Information Systems

Programming Language Design and Implementation

  • Auguston M., Programming language RIGAL as a compiler writing tool, ACM SIGPLAN Notices, December 1990, vol.25, #12, pp.61-69

  • Auguston M., RIGAL - a programming language for compiler writing, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer Verlag, vol.502, 1991, pp.529-564.

Experimental Visual Programming Language V

  • M.Auguston, "Visual Data Flow Language Based on Iterative Constructs," in Proceedings of 8th Israeli Conference on Computer Systems and Software Engineering, Herzliya, Israel, June 1997, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.91-100.

  • M.Auguston, A.Delgado, "Iterative Constructs in the Visual Data Flow Language," Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages VL97, Capri, Italy, September 1997, IEEE Computer Society, pp.152-159

  • M.Auguston, V.Berzins, B.Bryant, "Visual Meta-Programming Language", in Proceedings of OOPSLA 2001 Workshop on Domain-Specific Visual Languages, October 14, 2001, pp.69-82, Tampa, Florida

  • M.Auguston, Control Constructs in Visual Meta-Programming Language, in Proceedings of the VLC'2004 - International Workshop on Visual Languages and Computing, San Francisco Bay, 8-10 September, 2004, Knowledge Systems Institute, Skokie, IL, ISBN 1-891706-15-2, pp.253-256

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