The IEEE Software Advisory Board

The IEEE Software Advisory Board is made up of software engineering's leaders from around the world. These experts help us identify hot issues, strategic themes, and important software engineering trends.

Frances Paulisch, chair of the AB, is a software "best practice" evangelist at the corporate technology division of Siemens AG in Munich, Germany. She is responsible for the Siemens Software Initiative, which enables the sharing of software-related best practices throughout Siemens worldwide. Frances is particularly interested in the combination of cutting-edge topics and their practical use. Her main current areas of interest are requirements engineering, measurement of software-based systems, and global software development. She received her doctorate in software engineering from the University of Karlruhe. Frances is a member of the IEEE and the German Gesellschaft für Informatik. Contact her at Frances dot Paulisch at siemens dot com.

Pekka Abrahamsson is a full professor of software engineering at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He's also an adjunct chief scientist in SINTEF ICT, Norway. He leads a large international 35MEUR research project, Agile in Global and Distributed Software Development, with 35 partners from 8 European countries. A previous research project, Agile Software Development of Embedded Systems, was awarded the outstanding industrial impact award in 2007. He also received the Nokia Foundation Award that year. Abrahamsson leads the IEEE 1648 working group on agile standardization and is a member of the IEEE, ACM, and ISERN. His practical experience involves five years in the software industry as a software developer and a quality manager. Contact him at Pekka dot Abrahamsson at vtt dot fi.

Jennitta Andrea is an independent consultant. She is a hands-on practitioner of agile methods: process coach, tester, analyst, retrospective facilitator, and developer. Her main interest is in improving the state of the art of automated functional testing as it applies to agile requirements; she applies insights from her early experience with compiler technology and domain-specific language design. She is serving her second term on the Agile Alliance Board of Directors..She has a BSc in computing science (with distinction) from the University of Calgary. Contact her at jennitta at agilecanada dot com.

Elisa Baniassad is an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include the study of cross-cultural design and programming methodologies, aspect-oriented analysis and design, and empirical studies of programming practices. She received her PhD in computer science from the University of British Columbia. Contact her at elisa at cse dot cuhk dot edu dot hk or www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~elisa.

Ayse Basar Bener conducts research in empirical software engineering. Her research focuses on software process, software quality and estimation, and software development decision support. Dr. Bener switched to academia in 2002 after a 15-year career in the finance and banking industries. She held senior executive positions leading large IT initiatives and managed operations before joining Bogazici University. Her research group developed software process support tools that were deployed in real industrial settings. They include a metrics collection tool that is now available at Google Code. The group also collected precious defect-related data from 25 companies regarding their software processes, organized and packaged these data, and donated them to the PROMISE repository. All of her group's research projects involve close collaboration with an industrial partner. Dr. Bener holds a PhD in information systems from the London School of Economics and a masters degree in information technology from the University of Alabama. Contact her at bener at BOUN dot EDU dot TR.

J. David Blaine is a consultant for software quality and process improvement in San Diego, California. There, he's led several improvement initiatives, including achieving CMM software process maturity level 3, developing a metrics program, using ISO 15504 to define process-auditing methods, and using IEEE 12207 to define processes. He is a PMI Project Management Professional, an ASQ Certified Software Quality Engineer, an SEI Certified Assessor for Software Capability Evaluation, and a Quality Manager for the PMI PMBOK Guide 2004 Update Project. Contact him at jblaine at san dot rr dot com.

Robert Glass is president of Computing Trends and publisher and editor of The Software Practitioner newsletter. He recently stepped down as editor of the Loyal Opposition column in IEEE Software after 11 years of service. He has an honorary PhD from Linkoping University, Sweden. He strongly believes that too much of the computing field's conventional wisdom is flawed, but he also believes firmly in the software industry. He is devoted to finding realistic ways to improve how we develop and implement software. Contact Bob at R dot Glass at griffith dot edu dot au.

Kaoru Hayashi is manager of Software Research Associates in Tokyo. This is one of Japan's oldest independent software houses. His interests are open source, software processes, and software environments. He is a member of the board of directors of JASPIC (the Japan SPI Consortium) and a member of the IEEE Computer Society and SEA (Software Engineers Association) of Japan. Contact him at rin at sra dot co dot jp.

Simon Helsen is an advisory software developer in the Toronto Lab of IBM Rational. Previously, he held positions at SAP, Interactive Objects Software, and the University of Waterloo, Canada, where he worked on code generation, MDA, product-line engineering, and generative programming. His current interests are mainly in scalable repository indexing techniques, domain-specific languages, and model transformations. He holds an Informatics degree from the University of Leuven (Belgium) and a Computer Science PhD from the University of Freiburg (Germany). Contact him at shelsen at computer dot org or www.helsen.org

Gregor Hohpe is a software architect with Google. Gregor is a widely recognized thought leader on asynchronous messaging and service-oriented architectures. He coauthored the seminal book Enterprise Integration Patterns (Addison-Wesley, 2004), followed by Integration Patterns and Enterprise Solution Patterns (Microsoft Press). He was nominated a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) Solution Architect for his contributions to the developer community and recognized as an active member of the patterns community by the Hillside Group. In 2005, Joel Spolsky selected Gregor's article "Starbucks Does Not Use Two-phase Commit" for his "Best Software Writing." He likes to cut through the hype surrounding service-oriented architectures and captures nuggets of advice in the form of design patterns that can help developers avoid costly mistakes. Contact him at gregor at hohpe.com or eaipatterns.com

Steve McConnell is chief software engineer at Construx Software, a Seattle area software consulting firm. His primary focus has been on the development of shrinkwrap and custom software for desktop computers. He has also been involved in project assessment and project recovery consulting. Steve is the author of Code Complete, a practical handbook of software construction practices, and Rapid Development. He's a member of the IEEE Computer Society and the ACM. Contact him at stevemcc at construx dot com.

Dorothy McKinney is a Senior Fellow at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, where she helps the company apply best practices and lessons learned from across Lockheed Martin and industry to meet immediate program needs and reduce risks, with special emphasis on software and systems engineering challenges. She has held a series of software, systems and engineering management positions in various parts of the corporation and has been active in multiple program rescues. Starting in 2002, Dorothy has been teaching a course on Requirements Engineering over the internet for Portland State University. She has a BA in systems sciences and English from Prescott College, an MS in computer engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from Pepperdine University.  She's an INCOSE Fellow, an AIAA Associate Fellow, and an IEEE member.  Contact her at dorothy dot mckinney at lmco dot com.

Grigori Melnik is a senior product planner in the patterns and practices group at Microsoft. His fields of experience span from e-business engineering projects for large corporations and government agencies to applied research and teaching. His research areas include agile methods, empirical software engineering, executable acceptance-test-driven development, domain-driven design, and software testing. He served as a guest editor of the IEEE Software special issue on Test-Driven Development and is a program chair of the Agile 2008 World Conference. Grigori holds MSc's in applied mathematics and economics from Dniepropetrovsk State University in Ukraine and a PhD in computer science from the University of Calgary. Contact him at Grigori dot Melnik at microsoft dot com or http://www.gmelnik.com.

Linda Rising has a PhD from Arizona State University in the field of object-based design metrics and a background that includes university teaching and industry work in telecommunications, avionics, and strategic weapons systems. An internationally known presenter on topics related to patterns, retrospectives, agile development approaches, and the change process, Linda is the author of numerous articles and four books—Design Patterns in Communications, The Pattern Almanac 2000, A Patterns Handbook, and Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas, written with Mary Lynn Manns. She's a member of the ACM, IEEE Computer Society, Hillside Group, and Agile Alliance. Find more information about Linda at www dot lindarising dot org.

Wolfgang Strigel recently sold his Vancouver company, the Software Productivity Centre, an internationally recognized resource centre in software engineering. He has spent 22 years in software development, including 10 years in developing real-time systems for civil and military applications and 12 years managing software development, process improvement, and quality improvement projects. Wolfgang will be splitting his time between Germany and Vancouver as a consultant. Contact him at wolfgang at wstrigel dot com.

Dave Thomas  is cofounder and chairman of Bedarra Research Labs, Online-Learning.com, and the Open Augment Consortium; chairman of Xia Systems; and managing director of Object Mentor. He is also the founding director of the Agile Alliance and an adjunct research professor at both Carleton University in Canada and the University of Queensland in Australia. Dave was the founder and past CEO of Object Technology International (oti.com), creator of the Eclipse IDE platform, IBM VisualAge for Smalltalk and for Java, and MicroEdition for embedded systems. Contact him at dave at bedarra dot com.

Douglas R. Vogel is chair professor of information systems at the City University of Hong Kong and an Association for Information Systems (AIS) Fellow. He began his professional career as a software engineer in the aerospace industry and was also general manager of a manufacturing company in the computer industry as well as part of the groupware development team at the University of Arizona. His research interests include group support systems, knowledge management, and technology support for education. He is currently engaged in introducing mobile-device and virtual-world support for collaborative applications in educational systems. He received his MS in computer science from UCLA and his PhD in information systems from the University of Minnesota. Contact him at isdoug at CITYU dot EDU dot HK or www.is.cityu.edu.hk/staff/isdoug/cv.

Markus Völter works as an independent consultant and coach for software technology and engineering. He focuses on software architecture, middleware, and model-driven software development. Contact him at voelter at acm dot org via or www.voelter.de.