Will Tracz
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Will Tracz | |
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| Alma mater | SUNY Geneseo, Penn State, Syracuse University, Stanford University |
| Known for | "Confessions of a Used Program Salesman", Domain-specific software architecture (DSSA) |
| Awards | ACM Distinguished Engineer (2009), ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Service Award (2004) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Software engineering, Software architecture, Software reuse |
| Institutions | Lockheed Martin, IBM, Loral Federal Systems |
| Website | www |
Will Tracz is an American computer scientist and software engineer best known for his work in software architecture and the institutionalization of software reuse.[1] He is a Lockheed Martin Fellow Emeritus and served as the Chair of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT) from 2012 to 2015.
Tracz completed his academic training across several institutions:
- B.S. in mathematics, SUNY Geneseo (1972)
- M.S. in Computer Science, Pennsylvania State University (1974)
- M.S. in Computer and Electrical Engineering, Syracuse University (1979)
- Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Stanford University (1997)
Career
Tracz's professional career spanned nearly four decades within the evolving corporate structure of IBM Federal Systems, which later became Loral Federal Systems and finally Lockheed Martin.
He retired in 2012 as a Principal Software Engineer and Application Architect for the Global Combat Support System - Air Force (GCSS-AF). His work frequently intersected with high-level defense research, including serving as a Principal Investigator (PI) for several DARPA programs such as DSSA (Domain-Specific Software Architecture). In 1997, Tracz was granted a U.S. patent for a system identifying and linking domain information.[2]
Professional Leadership
Tracz has held prominent roles in both the IEEE Computer Society and the ACM.
- ACM SIGSOFT: He served as the Editor-in-Chief of Software Engineering Notes (SEN) from 1994 to 2012.
- IEEE: He served as the Vice Chair for Awards for the IEEE Technical Council on Software Engineering (TCSE) and is a Golden Core Member of the IEEE Computer Society.
- Conferences: He chaired several major international symposia, including the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) in 2002.
Contributions to Software Reuse
Tracz is widely recognized for his 1995 book, Confessions of a Used Program Salesman: Institutionalizing Software Reuse.[3] The book is noted for using humor and analogies to address the non-technical barriers—social, psychological, and economic—to reusing software components in large organizations.
Selected Awards
- ACM Distinguished Engineer (2009)
- ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Service Award (2004)
- IEEE Golden Core Member (2000)
- IBM Outstanding Achievement Award (1982)