Today, Farias investigates how software developers invest effort to merge design models created in parallel by different development teams. The knowledge produced in the last five years has been used to: (1) develop new tools and stimulate new researches; (2) establish new facts, and restate the results of previous works; or even (3) encourage other researchers for replicating empirical studies in different contexts. He has published his research results in premier software engineering conferences, including ICSE, MODELS, AOSD, and journals, including JSS, IST, ACM Computing Surveys, and SoSym.