Barry Boehm Wins 2010 Simon Ramo Medal

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 21 January, 2010 – Barry Boehm, a longtime IEEE Computer Society volunteer, has been named the recipient of the 2010 IEEE Simon Ramo Medal.

Established in 1982, the medal commemorates the engineering contributions of Simon Ramo, former board vice chairman and executive committee chairman of TRW. Boehm's award was “for leadership in and innovative solutions to the integration of systems engineering and software engineering.”

Boehm, University of Southern California’s TRW Professor of Software Engineering, has served on the boards of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Computer magazine, IEEE Software, and other scientific journals. He also chaired the IEEE Technical Committee on Software Engineering, and was a member of the Computer Society’s Board of Governors.

Boehm is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, IEEE, ACM, and the International Council on Systems Engineering. He founded USC’s Center for Software and Systems Engineering in 1993, expanding it to incorporate the systems analysis work of Eberhardt Rechtin.

In selecting recipients for the Ramo Medal, the committee considers the significance of achievement in systems engineering and systems science, technical leadership in a major innovative engineering project within IEEE’s scope, originality, breadth, impact on technology, patents and publications, and the quality of the nomination. The award consists of a gold medal, a bronze replica, a certificate, and an honorarium.

Boehm received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Harvard University in 1957, and his master’s degree and doctorate from University of California Los Angeles in 1961 and 1964, both also in mathematics.

During a career spanning six decades, Boehm has worked for a number of aerospace companies and government agencies. He was a programmer-analyst at General Dynamics between 1955 and 1959, at the Rand Corp. from 1959 to 1973, and at TRW from 1973 to 1989. Between 1989 and 1992, Boehm served as director of the US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Information Science and Technology Office, and as Director of the DDR&E Software and Computer Technology Office.

His current research interests include software process modeling, software requirements engineering, software architectures, software metrics and cost models, software engineering environments, and knowledge-based software engineering. His contributions to the field include the Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO), the Spiral Model of the software process, and the Theory W (win-win) approach to software management and requirements determination. 

Articles by and about Boehm can be found in the CS Digital Library. Among them are:

• “Making a Difference in the Software Century,” Computer, March 2008
• “A View of 20th and 21st Century Software Engineering,” 28th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE'06), May 2006
• “Software Engineering: The Legacy of Barry W. Boehm,” 29th International Conference on Software Engineering, May 2007
• “Experience Teaching Barry Boehm's Techniques in Industrial and Academic Settings,” 19th Conference on Software Engineering Education & Training, April 2006
• “Panel: Industrial Impact through Education -- Lessons Learned from Barry Boehm's Contributions to Software Engineering,” 19th Conference on Software Engineering Education & Training, April 2006

About the Computer Society

With nearly 85,000 members, the IEEE Computer Society is the world’s leading organization of computing professionals. Founded in 1946, and the largest of the 39 societies of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Computer Society is dedicated to advancing the theory and application of computer and information-processing technology, and is known globally for its computing standards activities.

The Computer Society serves the information and career-development needs of today’s computing researchers and practitioners with technical journals, magazines, conferences, books, conference publications, and online courses. Its Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP) program for mid-career professionals and Certified Software Development Associate (CSDA) credential for recent college graduates confirm the skill and knowledge of those working in the field. The CS Digital Library (CSDL) is an excellent research tool, containing more than 250,000 articles from 1,600 conference proceedings and 26 CS periodicals going back to 1988.