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Biography for:

Dr. Peter A. Freeman
Assistant Director
Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering

Peter A. Freeman became Assistant Director for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate (CISE) on May 6, 2002.

Dr. Freeman was previously at Georgia Institute of Technology as professor and founding Dean of the College of Computing since 1990. He served in that capacity as the John P. Imlay, Jr. Dean of Computing, holding the first endowed Dean's Chair at Georgia Tech. He also served as CIO for the campus for three years. In addition, as a general officer of the campus, he was heavily involved in planning and implementing a wide range of activities for the campus including a successful $700M capital campaign and the Yamacraw Economic Development Mission. He was in charge of the FutureNet Project, part of the campus technology preparations for the 1996 Olympic Village, that resulted in a very high-performance and broad campus network. In 1998, he chaired the Sam Nunn NationsBank Policy Forum on Information Security, which led to the creation of the Georgia Tech Information Security Center, one of the first comprehensive centers in the country focused on information security.

During 1989-90 Dr. Freeman was Visiting Distinguished Professor of Information Technology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and from 1987 to 1989 he served as Division Director for Computer and Computation Research at the National Science Foundation. He served on the faculty of the Department of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine, for almost twenty years before coming to Georgia Tech.

He co-authored The Supply of Information Technology Workers in the United States (CRA, 1999) and authored Software Perspectives: The System is the Message (Addison Wesley, 1987), Software Systems Principles (SRA, 1975), and numerous technical papers. In addition, he edited or co-edited four books including, Software Reusability (IEEE Computer Society, 1987), and Software Design Techniques, 4th edition (IEEE Press, 1983). He was the founding editor of the McGraw-Hill Series in Software Engineering and Technology, has served on several editorial boards and numerous program committees, and was an active consultant to industry, academia, and government.

Dr. Freeman was a member of the Board of Directors of the Computing Research Association (1988-2002), serving as Vice-Chair and Chair of the Government Affairs Committee. He was a member of select review committees of the IRS and FAA Air-traffic Control modernization efforts, and has served on a variety of national and regional committees. While at NSF, he helped formulate the High-Performance Computing and Communications Initiative of the Federal government.

Dr. Freeman is a Fellow of the IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers), AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), and the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1970, his M.A. in mathematics and psychology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1965, and his B.S. in physics from Rice University in 1963.

His research and technical expertise has focused on software systems and their creation. His earliest work (1961-63) involved developing advanced scientific applications in the days before there were operating systems and other support software. This led him to design and build one of the earliest interactive time-sharing operating systems (1964) and ultimately to early work applying artificial intelligence to the design process for software (1965-75). This culminated with the publication of his first book, Software System Principles (SRA, 1975).

After a short stint teaching overseas for the United Nations, he focused his work on software engineering, ultimately being recognized for this early work by being elected a Fellow of the IEEE. Along with Prof. A. I. Wasserman, he developed one of the first software design courses (taken by thousands of industry practitioners) and published a highly popular text that served as a first introduction to software engineering. His research during this period focused on reusable software, especially using formal transformation systems. That work has resulted in several startup companies.

Since 1987 when he was "loaned" by the University of California to the National Science Foundation, he has focused his attention on national policy and local action intended to advance the field of computing. In addition to his many activities as dean at Georgia Tech, he headed an NSF-funded national study of the IT worker shortage (see http://www.cra.org/reports/wits/cra.wits.html), started an active group for Deans of IT& Computing, and published several papers relative to future directions of the field.


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