30th International Conference on
Software Engineering ®
Leipzig, Germany, 10 - 18 May 2008

40 Years of Software Engineering

Brian Randell

Brian Randell, School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

Biography

My earliest work, during the period 1957-1964 while I was English Electric, was on compilers. This led to the book: Algol 60 Implementation. (Co-author L. J. Russell). Academic Press, London, 1964.

I then joined IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, N.Y. where, with an intervening year during 1965-66 in California, I worked on high performance computer architectures (the ACS Project), then on operating systems and system design methodology. During this time, and shortly after I returned to the UK to became Professor of Computing Science at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, I was co-editor of the reports on the two NATO Software Engineering Conferences.

In 1971 I set up the project that initiated research into the possibility of software fault tolerance, and introduced the "recovery block" concept. Subsequent major developments included the Newcastle Connection, and the prototype distributed Secure System. I have been Principal Investigator on a succession of research projects on system dependability funded by the Science Research Council (now Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), the Ministry of Defence, the European Strategic Programme of Research in Information Technology (ESPRIT), and the European Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme. Most recently I have performed the role of Project Director for CaberNet (the IST Network of Excellence on Distributed Computing Systems Architectures) and for two IST Research Projects, MAFTIA (Malicious- and Accidental-Fault Tolerance for Internet Applications) and DSoS (Dependable Systems of Systems). Currently I am involved with the DEPLOY IST project, and the ReSIST IST Network of Excellence. My current computing science research continues to be focussed on Dependability (for example on failure analysis) and, to a lesser extent, on the History of Computing.

I was a Member of the Conseil Scientifique of the CNRS, France (2001-5), and Chairman of the IEEE John von Neumann Medal Committee (2003-5), and am a Member of the ACM A.M. Turing Award Committee (2005-9). I received a D.Sc. from the University of London, Honorary Doctorates from the University of Rennes, and the Institut National Polytechnique of Toulouse, France, and the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore 2002 Award.

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