QW'96 Board of Advisors

The 9th International Software Quality Week's Technical Program is reviewed by a distinguished International Board of Advisors, listed below.

A brief biographical description of each Advisory Board member is also given. Email access or reference to each Advisory Board's home page (when available) is also given along with the biographies.



Dr. Frank Ackerman, Independent Consultant
Mr. Dennis Allison, Consultant, USA
Dr. Boris Beizer, Software Engineer, Analysis, Inc. USA (Technology Track Chairman)
Mr. William Bently, Bayer Corporation, USA (Applications Track Chairman)
Prof. Antonia Bertolino, CNR-IEI, ITALY
Mr. Robert Binder, RBSC, Inc., USA
Dr. Robert Birss, AT&T Bell Laboratories, USA (Management Track Chairman)
Mr. Gunther Chrobok, DLR - Oberpfaffenhofen, GERMANY
Mr. Michael Dyer, Consultant USA
Ms. Sigrid Eldh, Ericsson Hewlett-Packard, SWEDEN
Mr. Walter J. Ellis, Consultant, Software Process & Metrics, USA
Prof. Marie-C. Gaudel, LRI, CNRS, FRANCE
Prof. Richard Hamlet, Portland State University, USA
Prof. Mary-Jean Harrold, Ohio State University, USA
Prof. William Howden, University of California, USA
Mr. Gunther R. Koch, European Software Institute, SPAIN
Dr. Edward F. Miller, Software Research, Inc., USA (Program Chairman)
Dr. John D. Musa, AT&T Bell Laboratories, USA
Dr. Thomas Ostrand, Siemens Corporate Research, USA
Dr. Ted Ralston, Ralston Research Associates, USA
Dr. John Rushby, SRI, Inc., USA
Dr. Norman F. Schneidewind, Naval Postgraduate School, USA
Mr. Rob Schultz, Motorola, Inc., USA
Dr. Antonio Serra, ASIC s.r.l., ITALY
Mr. Keith B. Stobie, Informix Software, USA


Here are brief biographical descriptions of each Advisory Board member.

Dr. Frank Ackerman, Independent Consultant, USA

Recently associated with Octel Communications in Milpitas, California, Frank Ackerman has more than thirty years of software engineering experience with Johns Hopkins University, Control Data Corporation, AT&T Bell Laboratories and the Institute For Zero Defect Software. Frank is personally committed to advancing the state-of-practice of software engineering worldwide. He has held various positions in the IEEE software engineering standards effort and was the founding chair of the IEEE Software Reliability Engineering Committee. He passionately pursues his ideal of an engineering profession that can deliver failure-free product at an acceptable cost. (frank@verisign.com)

Mr. Dennis Allison, Consultant, USA

Lecturer in the Computer Systems Laboratory at Stanford; Independent Consultant; Series Advisor, Prentice-Hall Series on Innovative Technology; Editorial Board, Microprocessor Report. Founder with Bob Albrecht of the People's Computer Company, a non-profit which served a pivotal role in the development of personal computers. Past IEEE CS Governing Board member, Past member of the editorial boards of IEEE Computer and IEEE Software. Interests include Software Engineering and Test, Computer Architecture, Programming Languages and Compilers (especially optimization), VLSI Design, Genetic Programming, Robotics and Animats, Cryptography, the Sociology of Computing, and the Analysis of Algorithms. (allison@shasta.stanford.edu)
(Click here for Mr. Allison's Home Page)

Dr. Boris Beizer, Software Engineer, Analysis, Inc. USA
(Technology Track Chairman)

Dr. Boris Beizer received a PhD in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966. He has written twelve books, ranging from system architecture to his well-known pair on software testing--Software Testing Techniques and Software System Testing and Quality Assurance-- both considered standard references on the subject. His latest book is Black Box Testing, an introduction to testing technology. He directed testing for the FAA's Weather Message Switching Center and several other large communications systems. He has been a speaker at many testing conferences and is also known for his seminars on testing. He consults on software testing and quality assurance with many organizations throughout the world. Dr. Beizer can be reached at (bbeizer@gnn.com.

Mr. William Bently, Bayer Corporation, USA
(Applications Track Chairman)

Mr. Bill Bently is a Member of the Q.A. Software Staff at Bayer Corporation, a world leader in production of medical diagnostics products. Mr. Bently is interested in how advanced software technologies can be used for attaining the high levels of quality necessary in critical applications. He is the developer of the advanced form of software testing known as Cd testing, which has been the subject of several papers he has presented at Quality Week. His latest paper pioneered a new direction for software testing theory and research; the development of a theory of test efficiency. (bently@miles.com)

Prof. Antonia Bertolino, CNR-IEI, ITALY

Antonia Bertolino graduated cum laude in Electronic Engineering at the University of Pisa in 1985. Since 1986 she has been a researcher with the "Istituto di Elaborazione della Informazione" of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), in Pisa. Her research interests are in software engineering and dependability. Currently she is working at approaches for estimating and reducing the cost of debug testing techniques and at methods for the evaluation of software reliability. She is an associate editor of the Journal of Systems and Software. (bertolino@iei.pi.cnr.it)

Mr. Robert Binder, RBSC, Inc., USA

Robert V. Binder has over 22 years of software development experience. He is President of RBSC Corporation, providing consulting and training in software engineering and software process improvement since 1984. He is author of "Application Debugging" (Prentice-Hall, 1985). "Testing Object-Oriented Systems" is under contract with Addison-Wesley. He writes a regular column on testing for "Object" magazine. His articles have appeared in American Programmer, Communications of the ACM, Computerworld, CASE Outlook, CASE Trends, Database Programming and Design, IEEE Computer, Journal of Knowledge Engineering, Journal of Software Testing, Verification, and Reliability, and Software Development. He is the of Chair a newly formed study group to develop an IEEE standard for built-in test for object-oriented software. Mr. Binder has an MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a BA and MBA from the University of Chicago. He is an IEEE Senior Member, a member of the ACM, and holds the CDP and CCP. (rbinder@rbsc.com)

Dr. Robert Birss, AT&T Bell Laboratories, USA
(Management Track Chairman)

Bob Birss is Test, Process & Publications Director for the Advanced Technology Group in AT&T Business Communications Services. The newly- formed group is building a network operating system. Bob has been directly involved in software quality engineering and management for 15 years. Prior to AT&T, he was Software Quality Engineering Manager in SunSoft Developer Products for 6.5 years. He was on the Quality Week Board in 1993, 1994 and 1995, and he gave the paper "Test Coverage for Fun and Profit" at Quality Week in 1992. (bobbirss@attmail.COM)

Mr. Gunther Chrobok, DLR - Oberpfaffenhofen, GERMANY

Gunther Chrobok graduated from University of Hannover in 1988 with a degree in Meteorology and from University of Kaiserslautern in 1991 with a degree in Applied Mathematics. In 1991 he joined DLR and applied software engineering technology in international studies on ground segments for remote sensing of the earth. Within the ESSI project ATECON he was involved in the development of the test concepts and supported software projects during concept application phases. (chrobok@oqsws01.qs.op.dlr.DE)

Mr. Michael Dyer, Consultant USA

Michael Dyer is the principal member of DYCON Systems, Bethesda, MD which is a recently formed computer consulting company. He retired from IBM after some 29 years in management and technical positions involved with system and software development. He made significant contributions to the integration, test and software engineering programs within IMB receiving an outstanding contribution award for his work. Prior to joining IBM, Mr. Dyer was on the technical staff of RCA, General Precision and Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. He holds a degree in Mathematics from Fordham University.

Mr. Dyer is the author of The Cleanroom Approach to Quality Software Development, published by John Wiley and Sons. He developed the Cleanroom method, in association with retired IBM fellow, Harlan Mills. Mr. Dyer defined the process of introducing the Cleanroom ideas into software development, the statistical approach to software testing for reliability certification, and the practice for conducting verification based software inspections.

Mr. Dyer has some three dozen articles published in technical journals and conference proceedings and has contributed major sections to more than a half dozen technical books. He has delivered tutorials on the Cleanroom method and other technical subjects to numerous IBM and industry audiences.

Mr. Dyer is co-editor of the Information and Software Technology Journal, published by Elsevier Science and on the editorial board of the Journal of Software Testing, Verification and Reliability, published by John Wiley and Sons. (mdyer@access.digex.net)

Ms. Sigrid Eldh, Ericsson Hewlett-Packard, SWEDEN

Ms. Sigrid Eldh is a senior software quality professional with Ericsson Hewlett-Packard Telecomms AB in Stockholm, Sweden. (ehseldh@ehs.ericsson.se)

Mr. Walter J. Ellis, Consultant, Software Process & Metrics, USA

Mr. Walter Ellis is a consultant in Software Process and Metrics. He currently chairs the Planning Task Force for the National Software Council, an advisory organization of industry, academia and government working cooperatively to maintain America's dominant economic role in software. Mr. Ellis has 27 years of development and management experience in industry, 25 of those in IBM's Federal Systems Division. For 10 years he was in charge of developing policy and inserting technologies into major NASA, FAA and DoD projects including testing, measurement, quality, resource estimation and artificial intelligence. He has served on a number of Boards (National Academy of Science, ACM, IDA). He is the major author of IEEE Standard 982 A Dictionary of Measures to Produce Reliable Software. Mr. Ellis received his bachelors and masters in mathematics from the Catholic University of America. (ellis@cse.ogi.edu)

Prof. Marie-C. Gaudel, LRI, CNRS, FRANCE

Marie-Claude Gaudel is currently a Professor of Computer Science at the Universite de Paris-Sud at Orsay. Her main research topics are formal specifications; algebraic data types; applications of formal specifications to prototyping, program proving, program testing, reusability, exception handling. Professor Gaudel is a member of several journal editorial boards (Science of Computer Programming, Genie Logiciel, Formal Aspects of Computing, Journal of Software Testing, Verification and Reliability). She has been a member of the program committee of numerous international conferences (ICSE, TAPSoft, ESEC, FTCS, etc); she has chaired the programs of the 12th ICSE in 1990, TAPSOFT'93 and of the Formal Method Europe symposium in 1996.

She has been a consultant to several companies and several public agencies in France and in Europe. She is currently involved in several ESPRIT Basic Research Actions or Working Groups: DEVA, IS-CORE, COMPASS. She has got an outstanding paper award from the IEEE in 1984. Recently, she has been appointed as Doctor Honoris Causa of the EPFL (Lausanne). (mcg@lri.lri.fr)

Prof. Richard Hamlet, Portland State University, USA

Dick Hamlet is Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University. He has worked as an operating-systems programmer and systems-programming manager for a commercial service bureau and for a university data-processing center. He was a member of the software engineering research group at the University of Maryland for 12 years, and a visiting lecturer at University of Melbourne in 1982. He has been actively involved in theoretical program-testing research and in building testing tools for more than 20 years. He is the author of two textbooks and about 50 refereed conference and journal publications. Currently he is investigating the theoretical foundations of testing. (dick.hamlet@ucg.IE)
(Click here for Prof. Hamlet's Home Page)

Prof. Mary-Jean Harrold, Professor, Ohio State University, USA

Mary Jean Harrold is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at The Ohio State University. Her research interests include program analysis and testing, object-oriented software testing, and maintenance and testing environments. She received a BA and an MA in mathematics from Marshall University and an MS and a PhD in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Harrold is a recipient of the National Science Foundation's National Young Investigator award. She is a member of IEEE Computer Society and the ACM. (harrold@cs.clemson.edu)
(Click here for Prof. Harrold's Home Page)

Prof. William Howden, University of California, USA

Dr. Howden is a professor of Computer Science at the University of California at San Diego. He has worked in the area of program testing and analysis since 1975, with the publication of his paper on symbolic evaluation and automated test data generation. His work in the area includes material on fault based testing methods, functional testing, and the use of comments in systematic program analysis. His recent work includes the development of analysis tools for a real time and Ada programs. His book, Functional Analysis and Program Testing, emphasized the use of broad spectrum functional testing, in which tests are used that exercise each of the functional components of a program, including those from specifications and design. He has also done an analysis of statistical testing methods, and published work on models which describe how methods combine to produce a cumulative improvement in fault detection and reliability prediction. (howden@cs.ucsd.edu)

Mr. Gunther R. Koch, European Software Institute, SPAIN

Dr. Edward F. Miller, Software Research, Inc., USA
(Program Chairman)

Dr. Edward Miller is President of Software Research, Inc., San Francisco, California, where he has been involved with software test tools development and software engineering quality questions. Dr. Miller has worked in the software quality management field for 25 years in a variety of capacities, and has been involved in the development of families of automated software and analysis support tools. He was chairman of the 1985 1st International Conference on Computer Workstations, and has participated in IEEE conference organizing activities for many years. He is the author of Software Testing and Validation Techniques, an IEEE Computer Society Press tutorial text. Dr. Miller received his Ph.D. (Electrical Engineering) degree from the University of Maryland, an M.S. (Applied Mathematics) degree from the University of Colorado, and a BSEE from Iowa State University. (miller@sr-corp.com)

Dr. John D. Musa, AT&T Bell Laboratories, USA

John D. Musa is Technical Manager of Software Reliability Engineering at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ. He has extensive experience as a software developer and manager. He has 21 years experience in software reliability engineering as one of the creators and leaders of the field, and was elected Fellow of the IEEE for his contributions. He has published over 75 papers and is principal author of the widely acclaimed pioneering book "Software Reliability: Measurement, Prediction, Application." He organized and led the transfer of software reliability engineering into practice within AT&T. As a result, AT&T is now the world leader in its application. (j.d.musa@att.com)

Dr. Thomas Ostrand, Siemens Corporate Research, USA

Dr. Thomas Ostrand is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at Siemens Corporate Research. He is currently investigating methods and tools for establishing and evaluating the safety of software-driven safety critical systems, such as medical diagnostic devices. He has worked in various aspects of software testing, including theory of testing, test generation algorithms, and dataflow-based coverage analysis. Dr Ostrand is a Member of the Executive Committee of ACM SIGSOFT, and an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. (tostrand@scr.siemens.com)

Dr. Ted Ralston, Ralston Research Associates, USA

Mr. Ted Ralston is currently President of Ralston Research Associates, Inc. (RRA, Inc.) with office in Kirkland, Washington, and Austin, Texas. RRA Inc. specializes in consulting on technology transfer of formal methods-based software engineering techniques and process. Mr. Ralston is also a founder and Chief Business Officer of BlackWatch Technology, Inc., a New York based computer security company specializing in distributed system security. Mr. Ralston served as Director of Strategic Planning at Odyssey Research Associates from 1994-1995. He was a member of the Clinton-Gore Presidential Transition team in 1992-93, and from 1983-1991 was a member of the corporate and technical staffs of the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation in Austin, Texas. From 1975-1982 Mr. Ralston was a member of the professional staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Mr. Ralston was educated at Oxford University and the University of Washington. (ted@oracorp.com)

Dr. John Rushby, SRI, Inc., USA

John Rushby is a program director in the Computer Science Laboratory of SRI International in Menlo Park California, where he leads a research program in formal methods and dependable systems. Dr. Rushby joined SRI in 1983 and served as Director of its Computer Science Laboratory from 1986 to 1990. Prior to that, he held academic positions at the Universities of Manchester and Newcastle upon Tyne in England. He received BSc and PhD degrees in computing science from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1971 and 1977, respectively. He serves on the program committees of several conferences and is an associate editor for the journals Communications of the ACM and Formal Aspects of Computing. (rushby@csl.sri.com)

Dr. Norman F. Schneidewind, Naval Postgraduate School, USA

Dr. Norman F. Schneidewind is professor of information sciences and director of the Software Metrics Research Center at the Naval Postgraduate School. Dr. Schneidewind is a Fellow of the IEEE. In 1993 he was given the IEEE Computer Society's Outstanding Contribution Award for his work in IEEE Standards. He was awarded a certificate for outstanding research achievements in 1992 by the Naval Postgraduate School. He is the developer of the Schneidewind software reliability model which is used to assist in the prediction of software reliability of the NASA Space Shuttle. This model is one of the models recommended by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the American National Standards Institute "Recommended Practice for Software Reliability". (schneidewind@nps.navy.mil)

Mr. Rob Schultz, Motorola, Inc., USA

Robert M. Schultz is a Software Testing Technologist at Motorola's Automotive, Energy, and Controls Group. He is actively involved in the improvement of software testing process and software testing technology within this business group. In addition to his focus on product software, he also works with manufacturing test groups and enterprise integration groups to improve software testing in those areas. Rob has been in the software testing and software quality field since 1989, and has been in the software industry for over 10 years. He received the Bachelor of Science in Computer Science degree from Valparaiso University. (harbor@mcs.net)

Dr. Antonio Serra, ASIC s.r.l., ITALY

Dr. Antonio Serra received his degree in electronic engineering from the University of Torino, Italy. Since 1990 he has been President of ASIC S.r.l., Torino, where he has been involved with software testing tools development. He is a consultant in software quality and software engineering for many important companies, especially in military and space applications. His main research activity is in graphic pattern recognition, software analysis and software testing tools. (asic@ns.sinet.IT)

Mr. Keith B. Stobie, Informix Software, USA

Keith Stobie is an Architect within Quality Engineering and Development Services at Informix with a current focus in Interoperability Systems Quality Assurance. Keith is a leader in testing methodology, tools technology, and quality process. Keith is active in the software task group of the ASQC, past participant in IEEE 2003 and 2003.2 standards on test methods, and has published several articles and presented at many quality and testing conferences. Keith has lectured and provided training on Software Inspections, Systematic Software Testing, Testing Tools, and Software Quality. (kstobie@informix.com)