Alexander L. Wolf (born 12 September 1956) is a Computer Scientist known for his research in

software engineering Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...

distributed systems A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed computing is a field of computer sci ...

, and

computer networking A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

. He is credited, along with his many collaborators, with introducing the modern study of

software architecture Software architecture is the fundamental structure of a software system and the discipline of creating such structures and systems. Each structure comprises software elements, relations among them, and properties of both elements and relations. ...

, content-based publish/subscribe messaging, content-based networking, automated process discovery, and the

software deployment Software deployment is all of the activities that make a software system available for use. The general deployment process consists of several interrelated activities with possible transitions between them. These activities can occur on the ...

lifecycle. Wolf's 1985 Ph.D. dissertation developed language features for expressing a module's import/export specifications and the notion of multiple interfaces for a type, both of which are now common in modern computer

programming languages A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

. Wolf is Past President of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Previously, he served as ACM's Vice President, Secretary-Treasurer, Chair of the Special Interest Group (SIG) Governing Board, and Chair of

SIGSOFT The Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Software Engineering provides a forum for computing professionals from industry, government and academia to examine principles, practices, and new research results in software en ...

, the special interest group in

. He has been an associate editor of the

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology ''ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering software engineering published by the Association for Computing Machinery since 1992. The editor-in-chief is Mauro Pezzè ( Un ...

and

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering The ''IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the IEEE Computer Society. It was established in 1975 and covers the area of software engineering. It is considered the leading journal in ...

. For his research and service, Wolf has been awarded numerous honors, including elevation to

ACM Fellow ACM or A.C.M. may refer to: Aviation * AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile * Air chief marshal * Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting * Air cycle machine * Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia Computing * ...

IEEE Fellow As of 2019, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has 5,082 members designated Fellow, each of whom is associated with one of the 41 societies under the IEEE. The Fellow grade of membership is the highest level of membershi ...

, and BCS Chartered Fellow.

Life and career

Wolf was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Viennese Viennese may refer to: * Vienna, the capital of Austria * Viennese people, List of people from Vienna * Viennese German, the German dialect spoken in Vienna * Music of Vienna, musical styles in the city * Viennese Waltz, genre of ballroom dance * V ...

Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen, see Austrian nationality law * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ...

immigrant parents. He attended Stuyvesant High School, a public high school specializing in mathematics and science, graduating in 1974. Wolf majored in both

Geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...

and

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

Queens College, City University of New York Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body ...

, where he received his BA degree in 1979. From 1979 to 1985 he studied

at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

, receiving his MS degree in 1982 and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

degree in 1985. He remained at the

for two more years as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Research Scientist working on the Arcadia Project, which was laying the technical and theoretical foundations for tool-rich, geographically distributed

software development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools an ...

s. In 1987 Wolf joined AT&T Bell Laboratories in

Murray Hill, New Jersey Murray Hill is an unincorporated community located within portions of both Berkeley Heights and New Providence, located in Union County in northern New Jersey, United States. It is the longtime central location of Bell Labs (part of Nokia s ...

as a Member of the Technical Staff, where he conducted seminal research in the areas of

Object Database An object database or object-oriented database is a database management system in which information is represented in the form of objects as used in object-oriented programming. Object databases are different from relational databases which a ...

Software Process In software engineering, a software development process is a process of dividing software development work into smaller, parallel, or sequential steps or sub-processes to improve design, product management. It is also known as a software devel ...

, and

Software Architecture Software architecture is the fundamental structure of a software system and the discipline of creating such structures and systems. Each structure comprises software elements, relations among them, and properties of both elements and relations. ...

. Wolf began his academic career when he moved to the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sy ...

Department of Computer Science as an

assistant professor Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree A docto ...

in 1992. After promotion to associate and then

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

, he was named to the Charles V. Schelke Endowed Chair in the College of Engineering in 2005. He took a two-year leave of absence to help found the Faculty of Informatics at the

University of Lugano A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

, the first such faculty in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland. In 2006, Wolf became a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

in the Department of Computing at

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

. In July 2016, he became the sixth dean of the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...

Honors and awards

(2006) *

Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award The Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award was an award made by the Royal Society from 2000 to 2020. It was administered by the Royal Society and jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the UK Office of Science and Technology, to provide ...

(2007) * BCS Chartered Fellow (2008) * ACM SIGSOFT Research Impact Award (2008) *

Department of Computer Science Outstanding Research Alumni Award (2010) *

(2011) * ACM SIGSOFT Research Impact Award (2011) * ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Service Award (2012) * ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award (2014)

References

External links

Alexander L. Wolf, Department of Computing
* Association for Computing Machinery
ACM
* Association for Computing Machinery
ACM author page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolf, Alexander L. 1956 births Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Fellow Members of the IEEE Fellows of the British Computer Society Presidents of the Association for Computing Machinery Computer scientists Software engineering researchers Researchers in distributed computing Computer systems researchers Stuyvesant High School alumni Queens College, City University of New York alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni Living people