Stephen Edward Cross is the executive vice president for research (EVPR) at the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

(Georgia Tech), a position to which he was appointed in 2010. As EVPR, Cross coordinates research efforts among Georgia Tech's colleges, research units and faculty; and provides central administration for all research, economic development and related support units at Georgia Tech. This includes direct oversight of Georgia Tech's

interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

research institutes, the

Georgia Tech Research Institute The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit applied research arm of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. GTRI employs around 2,400 people, and is involved in approximately $600 millio ...

(GTRI), the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI²) and the Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC). Prior to this position, he served as director of the

from 2003 until 2010, director and chief executive officer of

Carnegie Mellon Carnegie may refer to: People * Carnegie (surname), including a list of people with the name * Clan Carnegie, a lowland Scottish clan Institutions Named for Andrew Carnegie *Carnegie Building (Troy, New York), on the campus of Rensselaer Polyt ...

Software Engineering Institute The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is an American research and development center headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its activities cover cybersecurity, software assurance, software engineering and acquisition, and component capabil ...

from 1994 to 2003, and an officer in the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

from 1974 to 1994. He is an

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 ...

, a former editor-in-chief of ''

IEEE Intelligent Systems ''IEEE Intelligent Systems'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the IEEE Computer Society and sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), British Computer Society (BCS), and European As ...

'' and former associate editor of the '' Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Systems Management''. He is a recipient of the

Defense Superior Service Medal The Defense Superior Service Medal (DSSM) is a military decoration of the United States Department of Defense, which is presented to United States Armed Forces service members who perform superior meritorious service in a position of significant ...

. Cross has published more than 60 research papers in computing, and has provided expert testimony to the United States Congress.

Education and Air Force

Cross attended

Madison High School Madison High School may refer to: * Madison County High School (Alabama), Gurley, Alabama * Madison High School (Idaho), Rexburg, Idaho * Madison Consolidated High School, Madison, Indiana * Madison High School (Kansas), Madison, Kansas * Kentucky ...

Madison, Ohio Madison is a village in Lake County, Ohio, United States. The population was 3,184 at the 2010 census. Madison was incorporated as a village in 1867. Geography Madison is located at . According to the United States Census Bureau, the village ...

, from 1965 to 1969. Cross earned a Bachelor of Science in

Electrical Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from the

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati) is a public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati and has an annual enrollment of over 44,00 ...

in 1974 and subsequently joined the

. While in the Air Force, he received a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the

Air Force Institute of Technology The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) is a graduate school and provider of professional and continuing education for the United States Armed Forces and is part of the United States Air Force. It is in Ohio at Wright-Patterson Air Forc ...

in 1977 and a Ph.D. from the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

in 1983. Cross also graduated from

United States Air Force Test Pilot School The U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS) is the Air Force's advanced flight training school that trains experimental test pilots, flight test engineers, and flight test navigators to carry out tests and evaluations of new aerospace weapon ...

's Flight Test Engineer Program, the

Air War College The Air War College (AWC) is the senior Professional Military Education (PME) school of the U.S. Air Force. A part of the United States Air Force's Air University, AWC emphasizes the employment of air, space, and cyberspace in joint operation ...

, and the

National Defense University The National Defense University (NDU) is an institution of higher education funded by the United States Department of Defense, intended to facilitate high-level education, training, and professional development of national security leaders. As ...

. While in the Air Force, Cross wrote embedded software for F-15s and F-16s. His experience also touched on software for cruise missile navigation, logistics, and air traffic control. Cross was a program manager for the

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adv ...

(DARPA) from 1989 to 1994; he was also a member and chairman of DARPA's Information Science & Technology panel. He retired from the Air Force in 1994.

Academic career

In 1994, Cross joined the faculty of

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, becoming a principal research scientist in its

Robotics Institute The Robotics Institute (RI) is a division of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. A June 2014 article in ''Robotics Business Review'' magazine calls it "the world's best robo ...

and Institute for Software Research. In 1996, he became director and CEO of Carnegie Mellon's

. While at Carnegie Mellon, Cross promoted more reliable

software development Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...

practices such as

code reuse In software development (and computer programming in general), code reuse, also called software reuse, is the use of existing software, or software knowledge, to build new software, following the reusability principles. Code reuse may be achiev ...

. In late 2003, Cross was chosen to serve as director of the

, an applied research arm of the

. He is also a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and an adjunct professor in the College of Computing and the

Scheller College of Business The Scheller College of Business is the business school at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia. It was established in 1912, and is consistently ranked in the top 30 business programs in the nation ...

. Cross was appointed Georgia Tech's executive vice president of research in 2010, assuming the position on May 1, 2010. In June 2012, Cross and David S. Stephens (vice president for research of the Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center) published an

op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...

in the ''

Atlanta Journal-Constitution ''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the only major daily newspaper in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the result of the merger between ...

'' supporting biomedical research.

Memberships and awards

In 2010, Secretary of Defense

Robert M. Gates Robert Michael Gates (born September 25, 1943) is an American intelligence analyst and university president who served as the 22nd United States secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011. He was originally appointed by president George W. Bush an ...

named Cross to a three-year term on the

Defense Science Board The Defense Science Board (DSB) is a committee of civilian experts appointed to advise the U.S. Department of Defense on scientific and technical matters. It was established in 1956 on the recommendation of the second Hoover Commission. Charter ...

. Cross previously served on the Defense Science Board's Task Force on Defense Software. While at Georgia Tech, Cross has joined several research advisory boards, including the Health Systems Institute, the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, the Strategic Energy Initiative and the Tennenbaum Institute. Cross is a member of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

(IEEE); he was named an

in 2003 "for the development and use of modern software engineering techniques in advanced systems". He was editor-in-chief of ''

'' from 1994 to 1997, and associate editor of the ''Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Systems Management'' from 2003 to 2011. In 1991, Cross was awarded the

; in 2002, he was named a

University of Cincinnati College of Engineering The College of Engineering and Applied Science is the engineering and applied science college of the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the birthplace of the cooperative education (co-op) program and still holds the largest publi ...

Distinguished Alumnus; and in 2010, ''Irish America'' magazine named him a Star of the South.

Selected publications

* * * *

References

External links

Official profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cross, Stephen E 1951 births Living people Georgia Tech Research Institute people Georgia Tech faculty University of Cincinnati alumni Air Force Institute of Technology alumni Grainger College of Engineering alumni Fellow Members of the IEEE Recipients of the Defense Superior Service Medal American chief executives of education-related organizations