|
Name: |
Alan William BROWN |
|
Date/Place of Birth: |
|
|
Nationality: |
British and |
|
Home Address: |
(Available on Request) |
|
Office Address: |
IBM Rational software, Madrid, Spain; |
|
E-mail Address: |
work: awbrown@us.ibm.com |
|
Personal Home Page: |
Course Development and Teaching
·
Internationally recognized leader in the fields of Enterprise
Information Systems, Methods and Tools for Application Development and
Delivery, and Distributed Software Delivery Practices.
·
Extensive experience in both industry and academia, currently
holding a key strategic position in IBM and an Adjunct Professor position at NC
State University.
·
Established record of attracting and managing research funds from
Government and industry.
·
Experienced Leader of internationally-recognized research and
development teams in the area of enterprise software development tools and
environments, and object-oriented systems.
·
Author of 5 books, editor of 3 further books, and author of over
50 papers published in refereed journals or conference proceedings.
·
Invited program committee member for numerous international
software engineering conferences including the International Conference on
Software Engineering series, European Conference on Software Architecture, and
the International Workshops on Computer-Aided Software Engineering series.
Ph.D in Computing Science. Thesis title: "A View Mechanism for an
Integrated Project Support Environment".
B.Sc. in Computational Science. Graduated with a First Class
Honours Degree.
In April 2006 I was appointed as Adjunct Professor
at NC State University. In this role I act as advisor to computer science
faculty and students on software engineering topics, I was a co-founder of NC
State's Center for Open Software Engineering (COSE), and I assist in the
revision of software engineering curricula. The COSE work is a joint
industry-academic initiative aimed at furthering the application and
understanding of open source technologies in commercial settings.
Catapulse was a
My role at Catapulse was within the Business Development organization.
I worked to position and evangelize Catapulse as an effective software
development platform for large corporations, ISVs, and small teams. This
involved analyzing industry-standard software development practices, working
with partners to understand how Catapulse technology can be combined
effectively with theirs to create a winning go-to-market solution, working
internally with Catapulse development teams and product managers to influence
their decisions and directions, and liaising with Catapulse management on
business and market strategy.
Catapulse was acquired by Rational Software in February 2001.
Computer associates is the world's third largest software
organization with over 20,000 employees and annual revenue in excess of $6B. In
April 2000 they purchased Sterling Software. From that date I assumed a role as
a Vice President for Research and Development for Computer Associates
responsible for application development products. The products for which I was
responsible generated annual revenues in excess of $250M.
As VP of Research and Development I was the primary representative
for the technology provided by Application Development products. In that
position I was responsible for advanced technology projects, and for the
presentation of new technology directions to analysts, media, and the field. My
responsibilities included taking a leading role in defining the technical
strategy and vision for the future of application development products,
assessing technology and market directions in e-Business and e-Commerce, and
assisting with industry partnership and acquisition strategies. This was
particularly important as we evolve our products to support enterprise
application development in the Internet age supporting e-Business practices.
These are enabled by a component-based approach to software development and
maintenance, called Component-Based Development (CBD).
Particular responsibilities included managing research activities
across the organization. I advised on specifications for new software products
and the future direction of enterprise application and component-based software
development products. I was also responsible for representing the application
development products and technical strategy at external events, interacting
with customers on advanced software development practices, working with press
and analysts in the software industry, and for positioning the products in the
wider CBD community.
I led the Object Technology Branch in its investigation of
advanced research and development products. Our role was to advise all
divisions of TI in the current capabilities of various object technologies,
build advanced prototypes in key areas, and consult with them in transitioning
these technologies into routine practice.
Specific technologies investigated included various
implementations of the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), the
Java language and environments, and Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM).
In all of these areas we developed technology prototypes, concentrating on
exploring their viability in complex, mission-critical application domains such
as manufacturing contol, telecommunications, and financial management. Our work
was viewed as influential in a making a number of critical technology
decision within various divisions of TI.
I held this position with TI until Texas Instruments Software was
purchased by Sterling Software on
For most of this period I was project leader for the CASE
Environments project. As such, I was responsible for a research group of 10
people, attracting and managing an annual budget of almost $2M. About half of
this was a result of a competitive internal R&D bidding process while the
rest was from external contracts attracted from particular government and industry
clients.
My responsibilities included technical leadership in the CASE
environments area by defining technical direction of the work, attracting
funding, coordinating our work with the rest of the Institute, and presenting technical
accomplishments and plans to internal and external sponsors.
My technical duties and responsibilities varied widely, and
included membership of an audit team determining the future of the Federal
Aviation Administration's (FAA's) advanced automation system program, providing
briefings at the Pentagon to Department of Defense decision makers, and
advising the Office of the Secretary of Defense on U.S. Government policy in
the area of CASE and software engineering.
During my time at the SEI I addressed some of the issues of how to
assemble and integrate commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components from various
vendors. The aim was to develop techniques, guidelines, and assessment
instruments that allow an organization to understand the problems of COTS tool
integration, have realistic expectations from CASE technology, introduce
integrated CASE technology in a cost-effective way, and be able to assess the
impact of that technology when it is in place.
I worked extensively with many kinds of technologies, including
implementations of the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA),
implementations of the Portable Common Tools Environment (PCTE), scripting
languages such as the Tool Command Language (Tcl), and many tools such as
Teamwork, Software through Pictures, ObjectMaker, Software Testworks, and so
on.
Aditionally, I also was an invited advisor on a number of
high-level strategic advisory boards directing government standards and
practices for software engineering within the Air Force, Navy, and Department
of Commerce.
Together with continuing my research within the Department in the
areas of databases, Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE), and Software
Engineering Environments (SEEs), my main teaching commitments included design
and delivery of an advanced database option for final year undergraduates, and
a fourth year (MEng) undergraduate course on Integrated Project Support
Environments (IPSE's). Further teaching duties included an introductory
computing course for conversion MSc. students, and an undergraduate
introduction to databases course.
My administration duties included supervision of undergraduate and
postgraduate students, and Secretary of the Board of Examiners for the MSc.
course.
During this period I was responsible for supervising a number of
PhD students and research associates. These were funded by a number of research
grants awarded to Dr P. Hitchcock and myself.
In the first project we were awarded the sum of approximately
75,000 pounds over three years by the Admiralty Research Establishment (ARE) to
fund three separate research proposals in the areas of integration of knowledge
and databases, object-oriented database systems, and future database system
architectures.
Following that award we began three projects funded by the
Information Engineering Directorate (IED). The ORCA project carried out work on
object-oriented requirements capture and analysis. This was a joint proposal
with Logica of Cambridge and Data Dictionary Systems Ltd. The total funding for
the project was over 800,000 pounds. The SAZ project investigated the
integration of formal and structured software development methods. This project
was funded to the level of 130,000 pounds. It was `uncled' by the CCTA,
computing advisors to the U.K. Government. The PROM project investigated reuse
techniques in design and analysis phases of software development. Funding was
initially for one year, later extended for a further two years.
A member of the Computing Laboratory, working on the Information
Base side of the Aspect project. Aspect was an Alvey-funded project whose
objectives were research into, and prototype development of an Integrated
Project Support Environment (IPSE). The project partners were the Universities
of York and
In the light of this work, the PTI specification was revised for
its final publication at the end of the main phase of the project in August
1987, and a second prototype of the system completed by this date, and
demonstrated at the Alvey Conference in July 1987.
An extension to the main project was completed, concentrating on
integration and evaluation of the work developed in the first three years, and
producing a third demonstration prototype.
As part of the first year of my Ph.D I followed the advanced M.Sc
course in Computing Systems and Software Design (CSSD), taking part in courses
on Computer Architecture, Database Systems, VLSI Design, Distributed Systems,
Software Engineering, and others.
As a postgraduate student within the Computing Lab., my duties
included demonstrating and supervision of undergraduate students on Pascal
programming Language courses, and marking of their project work.
Worked for a computer consultancy organization developing a range
of information systems running on DEC PDP-11 and Vax machines.
I have had extensive administrative and managerial experience in
my different roles. For example, in my senior technical roles with IBM and
Rational Software I have managed teams of people of various sizes, and have had
administrative and budgetary responsibilities for these teams. My
responsibilities have involved advice and guidance in all areas of research and
future strategy. As a result, I have extensive experience with administrative
responsibility for supporting the defined budgets, schedules, and plans across
development labs in 4 geographic locations, within the North American sales
areas, and in worldwide Marketing. In addition, at various times during the
past 10 years I have had teams of up to 30 people reporting directly to me on
specific research and development projects, with indirect responsibility for
groups of over 100 people.
At the SEI my administrative duties included overall
responsibility for 10 people, with an annual budget of almost $2M. This
involved acquiring funds from internal and external agencies, negotiating
deliverables with customers, budgeting, approving purchase requests, conducting
periodic performance reviews, and hiring of new employees.
While at the University of York my administrative duties included
Secretary of the Board of Examiners for the MSc course, and assistant
administrator of the MSc course. I was also a member of the MSc Steering
Committee. As a consequence of these positions, I held an important role in
ensuring the smooth running of the MSc course.
See
the attached bibliography.
In January
1998 I was awarded a grant of $1.6 million over three years from the US
Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
to carry out advanced development in advanced enterprise level component-based
systems. I was the principal author of the proposal, and lead the technology
effort to carry out this work.
I was
awarded the British Computer Society CASE Specialist Group award for the best
paper at the 8th International Conference on Software Technology and
Engineering Practice, July 1997 for my paper entitled "CASE in the 21st
Century: Challenges Facing Established CASE Vendors".
At the 2nd
IEEE International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems in
October 1996, my paper on "Engineering of Component-Based Systems"
was given an "Outstanding Paper" award.
In
September 1993 I was awarded a "Certificate of Appreciation" by the
US. Navy's Next Generation Computing Resources (NGCR) committee for my
contribution from February 1991 to September 1993 to their Project Support
Environment Standards Working Group.
While at
the SEI I received three internal achievement awards for my achievements on
particular contracts with SEI customers. This involves recognition by the
customers for excellence in research and technology transition.
In April
1989 I was awarded a Short-Term Fellowship with British Telecom Research
Laboratories at Martlesham Heath. Work on the Fellowship took place during the
summer of 1989 with British Telecom's IPSE Research Group looking at the
possible impact of object-oriented database technology on IPSE systems within
British Telecom. On successful completion of the Fellowship a number of reports
were submitted which summarized the work carried out.
I was an
advisory editor for a series of computer science books for Chapman and Hall
publishers. In this capacity I reviewed manuscript, provided advice to the
publishers, and communicated and encouraged potential book authors.
I am
continually asked to review draft texts for Prentice-Hall, McGraw-Hill, Addison
Wesley, and Chapman and Hall publishers, and numerous technical papers for the
IEEE Computing and Software journals, the ACM Computing Surveys journal, the
Software Engineering Journal, Information and Software Technology, and
University Computing.
I have
been an invited program committee member for a number of
internationally-recognized conferences, including the International Software
Engineering Environments conference series, the European Conference on Software
Architecture, and the International Workshops on Computer-Aided Software
Engineering series.
Available separately.