Keynote-Panel: Anita Carleton (Panel Chair), Doug Schmidt (Speaker), John Robert (Speaker) and Ipek Ozkaya (Speaker)

Advancing Leadership and Strategic Advantage in Software Engineering

This keynote panel will center its discussion on the evolving landscape of software engineering and on leveraging AI to enhance the development, testing, and sustainment of software. Drawing insights from the study Architecting the Future of Software Engineering: A National Agenda for Software Engineering R&D and subsequent exploration with the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, we will focus on the critical technologies and research areas essential for advancing future systems, with the overarching goal of making software a competitive advantage.

We will then dive deeper into three major focus areas identified by the study. First, we will discuss AI-augmented software development and the promise AI holds as a partner for software developers. Next, we will explore software assurance for today’s fluid, evolving systems, which are expected to undergo almost continuous updates and improvements and be shown to still perform as intended. Finally, we will explore ways to construct predictable software systems out of modular components, which are often reused elements that were not designed to be integrated or evolved together. It is therefore necessary to continually re-integrate software-reliant systems using technologies and platforms that support the composition of modular components. Please join us to discuss these topics and more as we delve into the intricate tapestry of software engineering.

Anita Carleton

Anita Carleton is an Executive Leadership Team Member and Division Director of the Software Solutions Division at the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, with more than 35 years of senior leadership experience in the software engineering industry. She has most recently led a national study titled “Architecting the Future of Software Engineering: A National Agenda for Software Engineering Research & Development.” Carleton serves as the chair of the IEEE Software Advisory Board and is an IEEE Fellow. Carleton received her bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University and her MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where she was the recipient of the MIT Sloan Leadership Fellowship.

Dr. Doug Schmidt

Dr. Douglas C. Schmidt is the U.S. Department of Defense Director of Operational Test and Evaluation. Until recently, he was a Visiting Scientist at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and a Professor of Computer Science at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Schmidt is an internationally renowned and widely cited researcher whose work focuses on pattern-oriented middleware, Java concurrency and parallelism, and generative AI.

John Robert

John Robert is a Principal Engineer at the Software Engineering Institute and the Deputy Director for the Software Solutions Division. Mr. Robert provides leadership for software engineering research and the development of technologies in partnership with Department of Defense (DoD) programs and industry to enable the broad transition of new software engineering approaches. Mr. Robert has led multiple SEI technical partnerships with high priority DoD programs, resulting in high customer value and beneficial connections to SEI research.

Dr. Ipek Ozkaya

Dr. Ipek Ozkaya is a principal researcher and the technical director of the Engineering Intelligent Software Systems group at the Software Engineering Institute. Her areas of work include software architecture, software design automation, and managing technical debt in software-reliant and AI-enabled systems. At the SEI she has worked with several government and industry organizations in domains including avionics, power and automation, IoT, healthcare, and IT. Ozkaya is the co-author of a practitioner book titled Managing Technical Debt: Reducing Friction in Software Development.