MSE Update - Spring 2017

Annual Newsletter of the Masters of Software Engineering Professional Programs at Carnegie Mellon University Spring 2017 Edition

The Human Factor Beachbody CIO, Eduardo Frias (MSE ‘94) on the journey from corporate shop to agile start-up, staying people-focused, and paying it forward.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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F RO M T H E DI R E C T O R

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THE H U M A N FA C T O R

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Program Director, Tony Lattanze, discusses his vision for the Masters of Software Engineering Professional Programs.

MSE alumnus, Eduardo Frias, Chief Information Officer of Beachbody, sat down with us to talk about his perspective after 20 years of leading cutting-edge development efforts at the likes of Accenture and Johnson & Johnson, as well as why he decided to establish a scholarship for MSE students.

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HONOR S

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FAC/STAFF NEWS

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OUR GR EATEST ASSET

CO LLA B O R A T I O N S

The MSE continues its long tradition of cross-disciplinary, inter/intra-institutional collaborative education. Get an update about ongoing collaborations and learn about our newest collaborative program: Master of Information Technology Strategy (MITS).

Our students, faculty, and staff continue to impress. Learn more about the recipients of two notable MSE awards, the Tomayko Scholarship and the Coach Award.

Last year was a very good year for some of our faculty and staff members. Catch up with some of our faculty and staff on what is new in their research and work.

You, our alumni, are our greatest asset. Learn more about Vaishali Gakhar, MSE’s new Student/Alumni and Corporate Relations Manager and how you can get involved with the program - from attending a meet-up to facilitating a sponsored project.

The MSE Programs are proud to be a part of:

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S TU D EN T P R O J E C T S

From inventory management systems to configurable robotics platforms to fault tolerance in cloud deployment platforms, MSE and MSIT students are taking on some of the toughest real-world problems out there.

STATEMENT OF ASSURANCE Carnegie Mellon University does not discriminate in admission, employment, or administration of its programs or activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, handicap or disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, ancestry, belief, veteran status, or genetic information. Furthermore, Carnegie Mellon University does not discriminate and is required not to discriminate in violation of federal, state, or local laws or executive orders.

Inquiries concerning the application of and compliance with this statement should be directed to the university ombudsman, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, telephone 412-268-1018.

Obtain general information about Carnegie Mellon University by calling 412-268-2000.

FROM THE DIRECTOR Dear Alumni and Friends, Greetings from Pittsburgh! I hope that you are having a healthy, happy, and prosperous year thus far. After the long Pennsylvania winter, we’re eagerly awaiting the spring thaw just around the corner. And I find the new year to always be a great time to reflect upon the road we have traveled as we plan our next steps.

A few interesting items of note from 2016: • We continued to see strong performance in terms of recruitment and enrollment, with over 60 students matriculating across our five programs this past year.

• Because of my new role as Director and everything that comes with that, I’ve taken a step back from directly leading our ongoing executive education work with LG Electronics. I’ll continue my involvement in an advisory capacity as the program moves ahead under the joint management of faculty and staff within the department.

• I’ve also handed over the reins of the Embedded Software Engineering program to long-time MSE faculty, Mel Rosso-Llopart. Mel was instrumental in the development of several ESE courses and has taught the Computer Science for Practicing Engineers for a number of years. He was the obvious choice to take the lead herein.

•

I am optimistic that we will shortly begin a new executive educational collaboration with the University of Coimbra, Portugal. Targeting working professionals, it’s our hope that the program will roll out in fall 2017 in Portugal, with students arriving in Pittsburgh in spring 2018. Stay tuned for more details.

One of our most ambitious goals this year will be to think about ways that we can realign the MSE suite of programs and our portfolio of courses so as to better address the ever-changing software engineering landscape. Identifying the enduring software engineering principles that will serve our alumni in the short term as well as for years to come will always be a persistent challenge. This challenge, however, has become more daunting in recent years due to proliferation of deeply specialized technology domains.

We can no longer afford to take a monolithic approach to software engineering education when the way in which practicing engineers gather requirements, design, implement, deploy, and maintain systems varies radically from domain to domain. To that end, we are looking for ways that we can explicitly address the needs of software engineers and their organizations through specializations and/or differentiating programs so that they can better focus on specific domains.

But we can’t do this without your help. To ensure that our programs and courses meet the expectations of our student and the needs of the broader software engineering industry, it is important that we actively stay in touch with how software is developed in practice today. In an effort to improve our ability to reach out to industry and alumni we have added Vaishali Gakhar to our MSE family of staff and faculty. As the Manager of Alumni and Corporate Relations, Vaishali will be responsible for helping us to establish and maintain long term relationships with industry partners and with you, our alumni.

It is our plan to develop these relationships so we can better connect with industry and alumni to understand what they would expect from an improved suite of programs, to create recruiting opportunities, and to identify studio and practicum projects.

If you would like to be involved in this realignment, have feedback, or would like to propose a studio or practicum project - please don’t hesitate to contact Vaishali or myself.

As we embark on this next chapter of the MSE program, it is our goal to ensure that our programs thrive for the next 27 years and that we continue to provide leadership in professional software engineering education.

On behalf of the Masters of Software Engineering Professional programs faculty, staff, and administrators I wish you a wonderfully healthy and prosperous year.

Tony Lattanze

Director Masters of Software Engineering Professional Programs Institute for Software Research School of Computer Science // Carnegie Mellon University

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(Photo credit: Beachbody)

The Human Factor Eduardo Frias (MSE ‘94) is the Chief Information Officer of Beachbody where he leads the development of the company’s distributed, on-demand fitness platform. Previously a senior executive at Johnson & Johnson and Dell, we sat down with Eduardo to talk about his perspective 20 years post-graduation, and to get his thoughts about his motivation for establishing a scholarship for MSE students.

Eduardo, thanks for taking the time to speak with us today. Everyone seems to come to the MSE from a wide range of interesting paths and with some pretty unique motivations. What led you to Carnegie Mellon?

I was doing software engineering work in Argentina where I’m originally from. I was in the middle of a truly miserable project.

I was talking to my friend Santiago Ceria (MSE ‘93). We came to the conclusion that we should make an effort to learn how to do this stuff better, become something of an expert, and then teach others what we’ve discovered.

Around this time, Jim Tomayko was holding a series of seminars on software engineering best practices in Buenos Aires. Santi and I met with Jim, and with Coach’s trademark personality and passion, he entirely talked us into Carnegie Mellon and the MSE. It all came down to an idea that Santi and I had stumbled upon, an idea echoed by Jim and the MSE: advance the state of your knowledge so that you can advance the state of the practice.

So after you graduated in 1994, you took up a number of prominent roles. First at Accenture, and then later leading development efforts at Dell and Johnson & Johnson. What did you learn while in the program that carried you through those first few years?

After joining Accenture, I recall thinking: “This is easy!” I had just spent a year and a half nonstop working six and a half days a week to learn as much as I possibly could and to earn my MSE degree. Stepping into the Accenture environment seemed like a piece of cake even though, by most standards, it was a very challenging and fast-paced role.

The MSE taught me a lot about perseverance and work ethics, my own limits in terms of what I could do and what I

Frias pictured outside of Wean Hall shortly after arriving at Carnegie Mellon for new student orientation in 1993.

might accomplish. By the time that I graduated, I knew that I could hang with the best of the best.

Even if I were to do it all over again, going through everything I did as a foreign student without the best English skills in a new city and a new country, I could take on the world. As a professional, the confidence gained by going through the MSE carries me through to this day.

After Johnson & Johnson, you made a pretty big change, sidestepping into e-commerce platforms. What drove you to move from a large corporate setting to smaller shops like ideeli and then eventually Stella & Dot? Simply put: I got tired of the big corporate life.

At J&J, I and another executive oversaw a team of 2,500 people. Johnson & Johnson IT at the time was a $2 billion organization. We managed a budget of $250 million between the two of us. I remember driving to work one day and not feeling particularly happy about my ability to personally influence what we were doing.

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FEATURE

(Photo credit: Beachbody)

I decided I needed a change. So I joined this small startup in New York City called ideeli, where I traded the J&J team of 2500 for a team of 20. It was one of the best career choices I ever made.

I came to start-ups equipped with the benefit of having learned solid techniques at CMU as in my prior positions.

I’d seen strong processes and great corporate practices first-hand at Accenture, Dell, and J&J. I knew that I could directly apply all that knowledge to a small environment.

Bringing that together with the diversity of activities that I was involved in was rejuvenating. I realized that personally, I’m just much happier when I can be in direct contact with people than when I’m several degrees removed.

What is something that most people may not realize or think about when they are considering the sort of switch you made?

Often, you think of a role like Senior Vice President in a large company to be a very high pressure role. But in reality, the smaller the shop, the greater the pressure. For better or worse, you can’t just blend into the crowd. You have nowhere to hide. There is no choice but to contribute your fair share and defend your decisions. And I now know that I thrive in that sort of environment.

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It’s also an environment where, as a leader, you can make and act upon decisions quickly. After some amount of trial, error, and testing, an idea that we had today could be live at our website tomorrow. That kind of pace and turnaround is unheard of at places like J&J or Dell.

You are currently the Chief Information Officer at Beachbody. Tell us, what is Beachbody doing to leverage the new technologies in the fitness domain?

Absolutely. Our mission is to help people achieve their goals, to live healthy and fullfilling lives.

Changing a habit is a really hard thing to do, doubly so when it involves something like weight loss. Think about traditional marketing approaches for fitness plans such as P90X. There may be a television infomercial, to which viewers respond by dialing a 1-800 number and purchasing a DVD. But the reality is that people aren’t watching TV all that much anymore, and DVD’s may be a thing of the past.

This meant that we needed to look for a fresh way in which to address our customers. We now have a strong on-demand platform for all of our fitness products, from streaming workouts to downloading meal plans, available where and when our customers need it.

What challenges do you find most interesting now that you are 10+ years into your career?

Most of the challenges we face come when we don’t apply the kind of systemic thinking - the sound software engineering principles and tested approaches to organizational change - that we learned about in the MSE.

Frias alongside Beachbody Executive Director of QA, Jim Palmer, during the “Ask Me Anything” segment of Beachbody’s All-Hands Meeting.

(Photo credit: Eric Ocequeda)

Moreover, we’re also building a community platform. So much of what makes these lifestyle changes difficult is feeling isolated, as if you are the only person in the world trying to lose 20 lbs. We are providing our customers with mobile tools that allow them to stay connected, seek advice, and connect with others in an effort to manage those days when your motivation slips.

What it comes down to is staying people-focused. I can confidently say that every dollar of the $1.3 billion annual revenue generated by Beachbody goes through one of the technology solutions that we build and support. We appreciate that there are millions of people who use our products every day, and we take that responsibility very seriously. Sure, we may be a for-profit corporation. But we’re committed to helping people enjoy their lives and their families more fully in the healthiest, longest-lasting way we can.

The human change aspect of

technology organizations is greatly underestimated. We think that

because we’re technically smart

people we adapt to change more

easily than the rest of the world.

We could not be more mistaken.

There will always be new challenges that accompany new technologies. For example, we are doing quite a bit around data science so we can understand the behavior of the people that use our products: what gets them going, what keeps them motivated, and what contributes to them falling off the wagon. And while those challenges are tough, they can be solved by hiring smart engineers.

The truly interesting challenges come back to the people, to our customers. How do we make smart investments to ensure that we’re helping as many people as possible, and that those individuals will be as effective as possible in achieving their goals?

That focus plays out in a lot of the practices, tools, and technologies that we employ. We use world-class, bleedingedge practices, from agile to continuous integration and continuous deployment. We spend a lot of time thinking about how to do automated testing and how to best roll out no-down-time-releases. And we do all of these things mindful of the central question: “How do we make good decisions so this technology really helps people?”

It is interesting that some alums, when asked what challenges they find interesting, might typically respond with a technical challenge. Is it fair to say, however, that yours is more people focused?

Oh absolutely, 100 percent. Several years ago, I decided that I was going to take a management career path. So if you asked me today to start coding, you’d probably fire me as your worst developer ever!

But I made that change because I find it much more challenging to work with a group of technologists to change the way that technology organizations operate rather than to actually build or change a system.

The human change aspect of technology organizations is greatly underestimated. We think that because we’re technically smart people we adapt to change more easily than the rest of the world. We could not be more mistaken.

My title may be CIO, but my last three or four jobs focused on helping the “IT shops” perform better.

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Often you don’t fully realize the impact of the MSE until many years later. But without a doubt, the return on investment for me has been off the charts.

CEOs don’t care if you’re using Java or PHP or Ruby. They typically don’t understand front end from back end. What they do know is that companies are either successful or not based on technology. When they come looking for people like me, it’s because things are not working.

And they’ll ask: “How can you transform us into a world class software organization?” I find that to be the most exciting challenge of all because it is so closely tied to the human factor.

What did the MSE teach you that helps you manage organizational change like that?

It comes back to the basics: How do you define the scope?

How do you go about estimating the work? Who are the right people with the right skills and right knowledge to do it? How do you plan the work? How do you track the work?

How do you deliver the work?

Even when we are talking about something non-technical such as change management, the same process-oriented principles that I learned at the MSE apply.

The MSE makes you think about hard problems. They’re not always the most real-world kind of problems, but they make you think long about hard stuff. And that rewires your brain so that when you land in an organization that is large, that is complex, has multiple moving parts, where hundreds of millions of dollars fall under your management – you are prepared.

You recently made a gift to Carnegie Mellon to establish a scholarship for MSE students, the Eduardo and Norma Frias Memorial Scholarship. What was your motivation for making that gift?

When Coach visited Buenos Aires and turned me onto the MSE, it was somewhat bittersweet. I really didn’t

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have the money to drop everything and go to Carnegie Mellon. I didn’t think it would ever happen. And while Jim did everything he could to find financial aid for me, it just wasn’t in the cards.

But then my parents stepped up and paid my way. They made it happen for me. I know that the decision to attend CMU was the most important decision of my life. From a personal and professional perspective, it changed everything. Besides paying them back, I wanted to do something that would help others in the same way that they helped me.

What would you say to any other alums considering a gift to benefit MSE students?

First of all, it is not that big of a financial commitment. I used to think of scholarships and assumed that I couldn’t afford to give enough money for a scholarship. And even what I donated is not that much money in the context of how much it costs to attend CMU full-time. But I wonder if people know that it really doesn’t take that much. You could give a few thousand dollars and the difference would be huge.

I will say this: I’m extremely grateful for that pivotal moment in my life. The 50-year-old man that I am today would not exist without that period of my life at CMU. I tell that to every person every chance I get. It prepares you so well for so many challenges, technical or managerial, both inside the software industry and out. Often you don’t fully realize the impact of the MSE until many years later. But without a doubt, the return on investment for me has been off the charts.

I think it’s important to remember that others helped us get to where we are today. And, I can’t think of a better way to honor those people than by paying it forward.

AG E N TS O F C H A N G E SPEAKER SERIES We are pleased to announce the launch of a new event hosted by the Masters of Software Engineering Professional Programs: The Agents of Change Speaker Series. The series is a yearly celebration of our alumni as seen through the lens of our core mission: to create “agents of change” that can help shape the future of technology. Each year, an alum is invited to speak about his or her professional journey, and the role that the MSE played in it. We hope that these talks not only inspire the next generation of software engineers, but cement the bonds that connect us all, as well.

Eduardo Frias

2017 Ag ents of Ch a n g e S p ea ker C IO, B ea c h b o d y Eduardo Frias (MSE ‘94) is a highly-experienced information technology executive with a very successful track record in several blue-chip, global leading companies as well as in high-growth and startup environments.

Since his time at Carnegie Mellon, he has led development efforts at Dell, Accenture, Johnson & Johnson, ideeli, Stella & Dot, and Beachbody. His relentless focus on the impact of technology decisions on long-term cost, benefits and risks has facilitated the growth and success of businesses across numerous domains.

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F R I DAY, S E P T 22 C A R N E G I E M E L LO N U N I V E R S I T Y P I T TS B U R G H , PA bit. ly/2p d 0PH 7

Would you like to be involve d in t he Ag ents of C ha ng e S p ea ker S er ies?

Do you have a n interest ing jour ney to sha re?

Conta ct Va isha li G a kha r (vgakha r @ a nd rew.cmu.ed u) S P R I N G 2 0 17

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COLLABORATIONS DOMESTIC MITS The Master of Information Technology Strategy (MITS) is a cooperative endeavor of the College of Engineering (CIT), School of Computer Science (SCS) and the Institute for Politics and Strategy (IPS).

The MITS program provides a multidisciplinary education that prepares students to define and conceptualize the emerging environment of threats caused by cyber operations, provides opportunities for enhanced information analysis and exploitation, allows for development and management of innovative information technology systems, and promotes decision-making challenges.

The program has four areas of concentration: Data Analytics, Politics and Strategy, Information Security, and Software and Networked Systems.

This year, we are pleased to recognize the entering class of 13 students from a variety of backgrounds and experience levels. Spending a significant portion of their time working out of the 300 S. Craig MSE offices (aka “The Cave”), these MITS students have become a part of the “MSE tribe”, participating in student and program activities.

We are happy to welcome this newest cohort and look forward to our continued involvement in this remarkable and innovative cross-college collaborative program.

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INTERNATIONAL SSN The program remains immensely proud of its ongoing collaboration with the SSN School of Advanced Software Engineering in Chennai, India. Since 2001, this collaboration has produced more than 150 graduates who have gone on to assume leadership roles in a variety of prominent organizations.

This year’s cohort of 13 MSIT-SE students completed their core coursework in Chennai prior to arriving at Carnegie Mellon Pittsburgh for their final two semesters of study.

SRM This year also saw the matriculation of the second full cohort of MSIT-ESE students from SRM University in Chennai, India.

As with the highly successful model of joint education employed at SSN SASE, these 3 students completed the MSIT-ESE core coursework (taught by CMU-trained SRM faculty) in Chennai prior to arriving at Carnegie Mellon for the summer and fall semesters.

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2016 STUDENT PROJECTS MSE PROJECTS Trusted Family Shubham Anandani, Karan Bajaj, Mewanbanjop Mawroh, Wenxin Peng Team members designed and developed an intelligent family tree feature that allows users of Trusted Family’s social networking product for single and multi-family offices to visualize and search family members as well as various metrics ascribed to them, including engagement heat maps and profile meta data.

Aquorn Jonathan Bender, Ashutosh Dube, Ekansh Gupta, Nishita Sharma, Yang Wang Team members designed and implemented a cloud-based software platform to support long-term debt management programs by state and local governments. Built using Java, Spring, MySQL, and Pentaho, the platform provides a full calculation engine, reporting/analytics, as well as document/event/people management capabilities.

LH Ventures - Visual Technology Ankita Dutt, Panukorn Lekhaka, Rajat Singh, Abhishek Singh, Zhong Zhu Team members developed an intuitive user experience that offers category managers in a retail setting an augmented ability to assess retail performance and take informed action to improve profitability. The team’s solution dynamically extracts relevant data from point-of-sale terminals to provide graphical functionality including: planogram heat mapping, real time analytics, inventory alerts, forecasting, and more.

Sponsor a project!

Do you want to help shape the education of some of the brightest young minds in software while also helping your organization meet your strategic goals?

Consider proposing a sponsored project today For more information on project sponsorship, see page 19 or contact: Vaishali Gakhar, Student/Alumni and Corporate Relations Manager, (vgakhar@andrew.cmu.edu)

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MSIT-SE PROJECTS NextGen: Pgh Zexi Chen, Kanishk Karanawat, Yashasvi Vedula, Tijing Wang The student team designed and developed an augmented reality app that features the city of Pittsburgh as an interactive digital landscape that allows users to superimpose creative designs, art installations, and models for innovative urban development.

Cycling Class App Shan He, Jiaxing Hu, Dongui Li Team members developed streaming media, video projection, and in-app purchasing capabilities to the client’s highly successful cycling instruction application which aides cycling instructors in the design of attractive, media-heavy indoor cycling class sessions.

Data61 Zihong Cao, Ashwin Subramanian, Zhiwei Tang, Mingye Yang Members of the student team developed fault injection software to test Data61’s Spinnaker cloud deployment error monitoring suite. Built on Amazon Web Services, the team’s product enables researchers at Data61 to easily simulate a wide range of errors including account exhaustion, instance failures, Spinnaker failures, and upgrade image overwrites.

Tuma Solutions Ying Jin, Yun Lei, Arunbalji Rengarajan Team members developed Android and iOS mobile companion applications to Tuma’s Process Dashboard. Supporting the Software Process Dashboard Initiative (www.processdash.com), the team’s mobile applications provide a lightweight solution that enables users to view their plan, log time, mark tasks complete, and perform other common actions while they are away from their desk.

Bosch Research and Technology Center Nikita Jain, Zhimin Tang, Litianlong Yao Team members designed and developed an Android app to deliver a personalized group music-playing experience with a dynamic playlist leveraging Bosch’s Bezirk Middleware technology. The student team designed a mobile application which automatically configures the group’s playlist based on each individual’s music preferences.

Software Engineering Institute Xiao Bao, Anurag Kanungo, Shengrong Liu, Gunjan Raghav Team members developed an open source, unified project management dashboard for a DevOps environment. The solution gathers data from various tools in the devops tool chain to support activities such as task assignment, bug tracking, code-commit, build, and more.

CuCu City Aayush Dawra, Chih Heng Wu, Zipeng Zheng Members of the student team developed a mobile application to support dynamic, grassroots workforce scheduling in a variety of retail and service environments. The iOS application allows employees to manage their schedules, request schedule changes, and switch shifts among one another without the direct involvement of managers.

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SSN MSIT-SE PROJECTS Risk Management Game Suganthan Dhanasekaran, Sriith Karippure, Daawar Khan, Pramoth Renganathan, Nivas Vivekanandan The student team developed a digital board game to teach the fundamentals of risk management and mitigation in software development. Based on a traditional board game, the students prototyped, playtested, and implemented the game using Java.

TripleCheck Anandan Arumugam, Chetan Yuvaraj Reddy Kovvur, Valavan Palanisamy, Lakshmi Subramanian Team members developed and implemented an image comparison algorithm in Java that compares a supplied image set with 150 million cataloged images and finds the matches within 1-2 hours.

Babysitting Mobile App Shrinath Badrinarayanan, Vikesh Inbasekharan, Kirthika Jayaraj, Nikesh Kantharaj Students developed a mobile application to connect users in need of childcare to babysitters looking for work in their locale. Along with administrative functionalities, the extensible application allows users to create profiles and connect with one another in order to service both user bases.

MSIT-ESE PROJECTS Configurable Robotic Platform Team 1: Li-Wen Chang, Chien-An Chen, Shunji Cheng, Xiaoyi Ge, Tongkai Shao Team 2: David Kyle, Prashaanth Ragupathy, Vaishali Suresh, Sujith Vijaya Kumar Members of the student teams designed and developed an “open� robotics platform for use in research and prototype testing environments. Building on previous work by ESE teams, the student teams developed control-communications capabilities, open API support, basic collision detection, and power monitoring for the platform.

IoT Test-bed Li Chen, Abhijit Hota, Kai Huang, Tianhao Wang, Yumeng Xie Team members designed and developed a limit operational system to test the fidelity of simulations examining the control and coordination of disparate IoT services. The test-bed featured a coordination/control system coupled with physical sensors and actuators that could be configured to mirror a similar environment configured within the simulation.

Additionally, the test bed also featured a programmable interface for the management of sensors, rules, operations, etc.

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HONORS AND COMMENDATIONS Tomayko Scholarship

The 2016 James E. Tomayko Scholarship was awarded to Wenxin Peng (MSE ‘16).

Wenxin holds a bachelor’s degree in Computing (Information Systems) from the National University of Singapore and most recently worked as a Software Engineer for Fuji Xerox Singapore.

During her time in the MSE program, Wenxin demonstrated an exceptionally strong commitment to her academic performance, earning exemplary marks in her coursework. “Wenxin follows in the tradition of all of our Tomayko scholars, distinguishing herself both academically and outside the classroom,” notes David Garlan, who recommended Wenxin for the award. “She was a stellar student in Models of Software Systems and a terrific teaching assistant for that course. Wenxin also worked with me and my research group on a project that uses probabilistic modeling and probabilistic analysis tools to investigate how adaptive systems might reason about the need to reduce uncertainty before taking automatic action.”

It is our great pleasure to thank Wenxin for all of her hard work and to congratulate her on this well-deserved honor.

Coach Award

David Garlan, Professor of Computer Science and former Director of the Master of Software Engineering Professional Programs, was the recipient of the 2016 Coach Award.

The award is named in honor of the late James “Coach” Tomayko, beloved professor and former program director. Current program director Tony Lattanze notes that the award recognizes individuals who embody the characteristics that made Coach an iconic figure. “During his 16-year tenure at the university and as Director Emeritus of the Master of Software Engineering Professional program, Jim dedicated himself to the development of our rigorous, challenging, ever-evolving and industry-responsive graduate program.”

Assuming the role of director from Jim in 2001, David is credited with much of that growth. “Throughout David’s 14 years as director of the MSE / MSIT program, he continued to build upon Jim’s work, strategically mapping a vision for the program’s future,” Lattanze says. “He expanded our educational portfolio, advanced our impact regionally, internationally, and at CMU proper, and devotedly nurtured our community. Under his leadership, we all learned to be better – better students, better teachers, better citizens of the world.”

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FACULTY AND STAFF NEWS Travis Breaux Dr. Travis Breaux’s work on privacy engineering continued this year, culminating in a paper entitled “A Theory of Vagueness and Privacy Risk Perception” led by Jaspreet Bhatia and Fordham University collaborators Joel Reidenberg and Thomas Norton. The paper was nominated for best paper and will appear in the proceedings of the 24th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference.

Drawing upon research in psychometrics, Breaux and his team employed surveys based on factorial vignettes to study the impact of vagueness and risk likelihood on users’ acceptance of perceived privacy risk, by measuring users’ willingness to share personal information.

Additionally, Breaux collaborated with colleagues and students on a number of publications in the last few years, including: • “Improving Security Requirements Adequacy: An Interval Type 2 Fuzzy Logic Security Assessment System” by Hanan Hibshi, Travis D. Breaux, and Christian Wagner. IEEE Symposium Series on • • •

Computational Intelligence (SSCI), 2016.

“Privacy Goal Mining through Hybridized Task Re-composition” by Jaspreet Bhatia, Travis Breaux, Florian Schaub. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering Methodology (TOSEM), 2016.

“Automated Comparisons of Ambiguity in Privacy Policies and the Impact of Regulation” by Joel R. Reidenberg, Jaspreet Bhatia, Travis D. Breaux, and Thomas B. Norton. Journal of Legal Studies, 2016.

“Toward a Framework for Detecting Privacy Policy Violation in Android Application Code” by R. Slavin, X. Wang, M.B. Hosseini, W. Hester, R. Krishnan, J. Bhatia, T.D. Breaux, J. Niu. ACM/IEEE 38th International Software Engineering Conference (ICSE), Austin, Texas, 2016.

David Garlan This past year saw a number of exciting developments for Dr. David Garlan. Perhaps foremost is the work he began on a collaborative research project, entitled “Model-based Adaptation for Robotics Systems” (MARS).

Robotic systems must deal with a changing environment, but today they can only adapt to these changes through a labor-intensive, manual adaptation process. The MARS team proposes to raise the level of abstraction at which robotics systems are implemented, using high-level models that are written by developers or discovered from the source code or the running system. When changes are needed, their approach automatically finds an appropriate adaptation at the model level, then transforms the system to one that is suitable for the new environment.

Garlan also began another collaboration this year with ISR’s Claire Le Goues on the “Evolution of Selfadaptive Systems using Stochastic Search”.

With support from the National Science Foundation, this project aims to develop a principled foundation for the evolution of adaptation strategies in the self-adaptive domain, using stochastic search. The resulting family of techniques reuse, recombine, and otherwise build upon previous knowledge about a given system to adapt to four major potential change dimensions: (1) the system’s architecture and deployment; (2) the tactics that can be deployed in an adaptation scenario, including mechanisms to choose between them and information regarding their applicability, costs, effects, success likelihood, etc.; (3) the system’s quality goals, and their relative priorities; and (4) the environmental assumptions that control the context in which the system is deployed.

Additionally, Garlan published two chapters in recent publications. The first, “Analyzing Self-Adaptation via Model Checking of Stochastic Games,” is a part of Software Engineering for Self-Adaptive Systems 3. The second, entitled “Evaluating Trade-Offs of Human Involvement in Self-Adaptive Systems,” is featured in Managing Trade-Offs in Self-Adaptive Systems.

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Jim Herbsleb Professor Jim Herbsleb had a tremendous year. In addition to receiving the 2016 SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award, he was also tapped to deliver keynote addresses at the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering Conference and the International Conference on Software and System Processes.

Additionally, Dr. Herbsleb’s research made a number of exciting advances, including: • Ongoing development of a systematic, empirically-based understanding of how, when, and why hackathons/codefests/sprints are effective collaboration modes.

• Studying the practices, community values, and technical effects across a range of development ecosystems as they relate to the management of cost in breaking changes.

• Further exploring the phenomenon of online deliberation and conflict generating increased perceptions of quality – specifically, whether this effect extends to other works on the same topic or

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by the same author (as was seen in the prior study of Wikipedia), and whether there are differences in the impact of conflict depending on the author’s gender.

Exploring how developers use highly detailed traces of developer activity to inform key development tasks while using computational and visualization techniques to provide developers with better and easier ways to access the information they need.

Chris Kemerer MSE associate faculty member, Dr. Chris Kemerer, was recently recognized for having written the most highly-cited paper ever in the field of software engineering.

Kemerer, who holds the position of David M. Roderick Professor of Information Systems at the University of Pittsburgh’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, was singled out for his seminal work “A Metrics Suite for Object-Oriented Design”. Published in 1994, and co-authored by his former doctoral student, Shyam R. Chidamber, the paper was the first to define a set of measures for objectoriented software. These measures were validated with field data collected from commercial software development projects.

The high citation count of Kemerer’s paper was verified in the study, “Highly-Cited Papers in Software Engineering: The Top 100,” published in Information and Software Technology in 2016. Noting that citations “play a key role in the evolution of knowledge” and “quantify the impact of papers and journals,” researchers analyzed the citation counts for nearly 72,000 research papers that were published between 1972 and 2015.

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NEWS

Nancy Mead Dr. Nancy Mead, SEI Fellow and Principal Researcher at CERT Cyber Security Engineering and Adjunct Professor of Software Engineering at Carnegie Mellon, published her newest book this past year.

Entitled Cyber Security Engineering: A Practical Approach for Systems and Software Assurance, the book brings together the latest best practices in designing, implementing, maintaining, and/or retrofitting sophisticated software systems to exhibit the highest levels of operational security. Together with her co-author, Dr. Carol C. Woody, Mead introduces seven core principles of software assurance, and maps those principles to all key areas of cybersecurity engineering.

Additionally, Mead also contributed a number of publications and spoke on a variety of topics last year including: • Contribution of a book chapter to Advances in Computer, vol. 102, entitled “Advances in Software Engineering and Software Assurance” • Presentation of a conference paper, “Meeting Industry Needs for Secure Software Development”, at •

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the Conference on Software Engineering Education & Training (CSEET) this past spring.

Presentation of a talk, “Lessons learned from an industry/government/academic collaboration in educating secure software developers”, to the attendees of the Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education (CISSE), held in Philadelphia this past summer.

Delivery of a keynote address, alongside colleague Girish Seshagiri, entitled “Partnering with Community Colleges to Meet Industry Needs for Secure Software Development”. The talk was held as a part of the Community College Cyber Summit (3CS) this past summer in Pittsburgh.

Finally, Mead published a report resulting from a recently completed Studio project, for which she was the client. Co-authors on the report, entitled “Report Writer and Security Requirements Finder: User and Admin Manuals”, include 2015 MSE alumni Sankalp Anand, Anurag Gupta, Swati Priyam, Yaobin Wen, and Walid El Baroni.

Eduardo Miranda Dr. Eduardo Miranda was selected to present his paper “Nominal Group Interview Technique to Support Lightweight Process Assessments: Description and Experience Report” at the 16th International SPICE Conference on Process Improvement and Capability Determination in Dublin, Ireland.

The SPICE conference is an annual event hosted by the SPICE User Group. The conference regularly draws technical leaders from around the globe for the three-day summit.

Miranda’s paper, which proposes the use of a group interview technique and user stories to conduct lightweight process assessments while simultaneously promoting the development of a shared understanding of the problems facing the organization, was published in Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS) following the conference proceedings. The work was also adapted for an article, titled “Documentless Assessments Using Nominal Group Interviews”, published in the March 2017 edition of Software Quality Professional.

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Dave Root This year, Dave Root traveled, on behalf of the programs, to Duy Tan University in Da Nang, Vietnam where he advised current faculty on best practices in teaching coursework on software project management.

Over the span of nine days, Root spoke on a wide range of topics to the approximately 50 faculty from not only Duy Tan but also Van Lang University (Ho Chi Minh City).

“The experience of working alongside my colleagues in Vietnam was a deeply enriching one,” Root notes.

“The rapid growth of the Vietnamese economy in recent years has generated a wealth of challenges and opportunities for the industry. The chance to share some of our best practices with our peers at this critical point was a profoundly rewarding experience.”

Mel Rosso-Llopart Mel Rosso-Llopart, MSE program faculty member, returned this year after an extended trip to Carnegie Mellon’s Rwanda campus. While in Rwanda, Mel delivered onsite lectures of his course, “Computer Science for Practicing Engineers”.

With its focus on bridging the gap between traditional engineering and computer science and programming, this course has been a staple in Rosso-Llopart’s teaching schedule since 2012.

Mel notes that the trip was successful on many levels. “Students derive a lot from one-on-one personal interaction with a course developer,” he notes, “and I, in turn, benefitted from a greater appreciation of their fascinating and beautiful country. I look forward to visiting again in the near future.”

Mary Shaw Mary Shaw, the AJ Perlis University Professor of Computer Science, was the recipient of the 2016 George R Stibitz Computer & Communications Pioneer Award. Awarded by the American Computer and Robotics Museum, Dr. Shaw was tapped for her “seminal and pioneering contributions to software architecture and computer science curricula”. Also receiving the award this year posthumously are Alan Turing and Joseph Desch for their work breaking the Enigma code.

Professor Shaw also delivered several high-profile keynote talks in 2016 including “Progress Toward an Engineering Discipline of Software” at the 2016 International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) in Austin, Texas; and “What Can Control Theory Teach Us about Assurances in Self Adaptive Systems” at the Models at Runtime for Cyber Physical Systems (MARTCPS) workshop which was part of the 2016 IEEE World Forum on Internet of Things hosted in Reston, Virginia.

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OUR GREATEST ASSET Hello, Alumni and Friends!

My name is Vaishali Gakhar and I am the program’s Student/Alumni and Corporate Relations Manager. As the newest member of the staff, I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and share with you a few thoughts.

About Me I earned a Bachelor of Science in psychology from Rajasthan University, a Master of Arts in psychology from Amity University, and a second Master of Science in personnel and human resources development from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Prior to joining the MSE, I worked in career services at the University of South Florida. In my role at USF, I developed programming to facilitate the placement of graduates in their chosen fields of study.

In my current role as MSE Student/Alumni and Corporate Relations Manager, I serve as an ambassador to industry, working to identify, cultivate, and secure lasting and meaningful partnerships with organizations and with you, our alumni.

Further, I serve the program by supporting current students in their professional development.

Thoughts You know that the MSE is a challenging program. You lived it. The hours in the Cave were long and plentiful. You know firsthand how difficult it can be to succeed in this rigorous environment. But you also know how the support of your peers, mentors, and the MSE community as a whole contributed to the success you earned not only at CMU, but thereafter.

What you may not realize is that you can make a difference in the lives of our current students. The program relies heavily on your knowledge and connections within industry to drive and enrich various facets of the professional program.

Moreover, the students count on you to not only provide them with employment opportunities after graduation, but also a healthy reality-check.

You can engage with the program in a number of ways – from recruitment and employment, to guest lectures and tech talks, or serving as a project sponsor. Each of these advances our educational mission to produce industry’s very best software engineers.

If any of these opportunities spark your personal interest, allow you to realize organizational goals, or enable you to resolve organizational challenges, it would be my pleasure to chat with you.

I look forward to working with all of you in the coming year, and send you wishes for a healthy and prosperous 2017.

Vaishali Gakhar Student/Alumni and Corporate Relations Manager (vgakhar@andrew.cmu.edu)

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PROJECT SPONSORSHIP Sponsoring an MSE or MSIT project is an immensely rewarding experience, both for alumni of the programs as well as their organizations. Benefits include: • Access to students for recruitment • Developing research relationships with CMU faculty • Undertaking projects that the organization may not have the resources to tackle Please review the options below. If you’d like to further explore sponsorship opportunities, we invite you to contact Vaishali Gakhar (vgakhar@andrew.cmu.edu), Student/Alumni and Corporate Relations Manager.

OPTION 1 • • • •

Well-suited to software development projects with larger scope or highly complex requirements and dependencies 4-5 team members Team members average 3-5 years of professional software development experience 3 semesters in length. Starts in January and concludes in December

Enernoc // OpenADR Proof-of-Concept Enernoc is a leading provider of software in the energy distribution/demand-response space. Demand response technology supports changes in power consumption by end-users based on fluctuations in the price of electricity.

The ability to support a large number of devices and to respond in a timely manner to changing prices or demand were key technical concerns. This project tasked a Masters of Software Engineering team with developing a proofof-concept solution aimed at achieving these systemic concerns while supporting an emerging automated demand response (OpenADR) standard.

OPTION 2 • • • •

Well suited to smaller, fast-paced software development projects. More limited scope than Option 1 2 - 4 team members Team members average 1-2 years of project experience 2 semesters in length. Starts in January and concludes in August

The Warhol // Screen Printing Mobile App The Andy Warhol Museum sponsored a team of three MSIT-SE students to develop an iPhone application that digitized Andy Warhol’s silk screen process. The Warhol not only wanted to give people a means to create a Warholesque image, but also wanted to teach people the process that Warhol used to make his famous silk screens.

The students were able to successfully deliver an iPhone app that not only achieved these objectives, but also received significant national media attention in The Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo, and other outlets.

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Each year, we host several gatherings around the country. Whether you are new to town or a longtime resident, we invite you to gather with other MSE/MSIT graduates for a relaxed evening together in a city near you.

Locations and time to be determined.

For the most up-to-date event information, please visit our alumni events page at

bit.ly/2 pFW 0 W k

Not able to make to Seattle or San Francisco? Why not help organize an alumni meet-up in your area?

We are happy to offer support and assistance to any graduate looking to set up a regional alumni event.

If this sounds interesting to you, contact Vaishali Gakhar (vgakhar@andrew.cmu.edu)

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DON’T GET DISCONNECTED Updating your university record is a terrific way to ensure that the program keeps you in the loop with its yearly newsletter, announcements of regional alumni gatherings, and more!

Likewise, knowing where you work - and in what role - enables us to connect you with current students and fellow alumni who call on us for career assistance.

If you haven’t heard from us in a while, recently moved, changed your email, or took a new job – consider taking a moment to update your alumni record.

alumni.cmu.edu/update

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