Kevin Fall to Join SEI as Chief Technology Officer

PITTSBURGH, Jan. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Kevin R. Fall, a computer scientist and engineer with broad experience in government and industry, will join the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI) January 30 as deputy director for research and chief technology officer. In this role, Fall will direct the research and development portfolio of the SEI's technical programs in cybersecurity, software architecture, process improvement, measurement and estimating, and unique technical support to sponsors.

"We look forward to working with Kevin to move our research programs forward to meet the needs of our sponsors," said Paul Nielsen, SEI director and chief executive officer. "He brings to the SEI a depth of experience not only as a principal engineer in industry but also as a scientific adviser to government organizations such as the Department of Defense, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Army."

"I'm very pleased to be joining the SEI," Fall said. "Today, the reliability, security, and performance of software have an incredibly broad impact, from entertainment to national security. The SEI is uniquely positioned to bring together world-renowned expertise, operational experience, and knowledge to attack the nation's toughest software-dependent systems problems. I'm looking forward to working with the SEI staff, CMU, and our sponsors to help deliver an R&D program second to none focusing on the development, analysis, and security of complex distributed software systems."

Before joining the SEI, Fall was principal engineer at Qualcomm, where he worked on adaptive video streaming technology and networking-related programs with QGOV, Qualcomm's government systems subsidiary. Prior to his work at Qualcomm, Fall was co-founder of NetBoost Corp., where he was responsible for architecture and design of a software framework for programming network processors. When NetBoost was acquired by Intel, he became a principal engineer. In that role, he led the strategic, long-range plan on data use controls, a security mechanism to help ensure data privacy and provenance on computing platforms and networks. For several years, he also researched simulation, network scalability, and protocols at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

In addition to these positions, Fall also served as a member of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) Scientific Advisory Board. As board member, he provided technical advice to the USAF chief of staff and secretary, and he participated in technical reviews of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). He also has served as a consultant to the Defense Science Board and a member of the Defense Science Study Group, the Army-DARPA Senior Advisory Group, and the DARPA Information Sciences and Technology (ISAT) group, which brings together a highly selective team of academics and researchers to advise DARPA on future directions.  He has also served as a member of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), responsible for architectural oversight of internet standards.

Fall, who holds eight U.S. patents, is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He is the co-author of the book TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols (2^nd Edition) and numerous technical articles.

About the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute
The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense and operated by Carnegie Mellon University. The SEI helps organizations make measurable improvements in their software engineering capabilities by providing technical leadership to advance the practice of software engineering. For more information, visit the SEI website at: http://www.sei.cmu.edu.

SOURCE Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute