Education and Employment Record

My education and qualifications are all in Computer Science. On 21st of December 1998 I obtained a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Southern California (USA) under the supervision of Prof. Barry Boehm. My thesis is about detecting architectural mismatches during software system composition. I have an MSc degree in Software Engineering from the University of Southern California (USA; 1995) and another in Computer Science from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (USA; 1992). My BSc was in Mathematics with specialization in Informatics from the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil; 1989).

I have been a lecturer in the School of Computing Science at Newcastle University (UK) since August 2002, where I am part of the dependability group. My previous academic research experience was working as a researcher in my current organization (2001-2002), as a graduate research assistant to Prof. Barry Boehm at the University of Southern California (USA; 1993-1998), and to Prof. David Musser at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (USA; 1992).

I have research experience from industrial environments, having led the Software Architectures Group at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE) in Germany (1998-2000) and at TRW (USA; 1995). Further industrial experiences were as a software engineer at TRW (USA; 1993), IBM (Brazil; 1988-1991), and two SMEs in Brazil (1987 and 1988).

Research Interests

My research aim is to facilitate the design, development and evolution of dependable computer-based systems. I am working towards that end by means of two separate, yet related, paths, one within the core of computing science while the other is much more interdisciplinary.

I am convinced that considerable achievements and progress in software engineering will mainly be accomplished by taking a broader perspective of systems and their context. Aspects of environments in which systems are deployed raise important issues, but consideration of the environments where systems are developed are just as relevant. These are now the continuing threads in my research.

The main areas in which I have carried out research so far include: software architectures; software reuse, component-based software engineering, and software product lines; open source software; software dependability; and architecting dependable systems. I was involved in the creation of three of these areas, namely software architectures, software product lines, and architecting dependable systems. In the last six years I have also performed interdisciplinary research on computer-based systems. I have international publications in all of the areas mentioned above, including some invited publications, and have given several invited lectures.

I have been the principal investigator of research grants (ranging from one person year for two years to six person years for two years), and a researcher in several others. My research management experience is not only that of being a principal investigator on research grants and leader of research activities, but also includes leading a research group of five staff at Fraunhofer IESE and supervising research (PhD and Masters) students.

As professional activities I have been involved in the organization of 33 conferences and events, in roles such as Program Committee (PC) chair, being (one of) the main organizer(s), and being a PC member. I have reviewed papers for seven international journals and five other events, and edited 14 publications including a journal issue. I have also acted as an expert evaluator and project reviewer for the European Commission.

Upcoming Events

Dependable Architectures Workshop: Leeds (UK); November 2008.

Dependable and Adaptive Distributed Systems (DADS) Track (SAC 2008): Honolulu, Hawaii (USA); March 2009.

ICSE 2009 Workshop on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems (SEAMS 2009): Vancouver (Canada); May 2009.

The International Workshop on Software Architectures and Mobility (SAM 2009) at ICSE: Vancouver (Canada); May 2009.

International Conference on Dependability (DEPEND 2009): Athens (Greece); June 2009.

DSN 2009 Workshop on Architecting Dependable Systems (WADS 2009): Estoril (Portugal); June-July 2009.

Fourth Latin American Symposium on Dependable Computing (LADC 2009): Joao Pessoa (Brazil); September 2009.

International Symposium on Architecting Critical Systems (ISARCS); 2010.

Society Memberships

I have been a member of the ACM and IEEE since 1994.