Douglas C. Schmidt (born July 18, 1962) is a

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

and

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

in the fields of

object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of '' objects''. Objects can contain data (called fields, attributes or properties) and have actions they can perform (called procedures or methods and impl ...

reactive programming In computing, reactive programming is a Declarative programming, declarative programming paradigm concerned with Stream (computing), data streams and the propagation of change. With this paradigm, it is possible to express static (e.g., arrays) or ...

distributed computing Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems, defined as computer systems whose inter-communicating components are located on different networked computers. The components of a distributed system commu ...

design patterns ''Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software'' (1994) is a software engineering book describing software design patterns. The book was written by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides, with a fore ...

and

generative AI Generative artificial intelligence (Generative AI, GenAI, or GAI) is a subfield of artificial intelligence that uses generative models to produce text, images, videos, or other forms of data. These models learn the underlying patterns and str ...

. He is the inaugural Dean of the School of Computing, Data Sciences & Physics at William & Mary.

Biography

In August 1994 he joined the faculty of

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...

. From August 1999 to December 2002 he was associate professor with

tenure Tenure is a type of academic appointment that protects its holder from being fired or laid off except for cause, or under extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency or program discontinuation. Academic tenure originated in the United ...

at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...

. During much of this time he worked for

DARPA 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 Adva ...

managing US federal funded research programs. In 2003 he became professor of computer Science at

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private university, private research university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provide ...

, and associate chair of computer science and engineering in December 2004. In August 2010 he became a deputy director, research, and chief technology officer at

Software Engineering Institute Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1984, the institute is now sponsored by the Uni ...

. In April 2013 he became a director at Real-Time Innovations. In January 2025 he became the inaugural Dean of the School of Computing, Data Sciences & Physics at William & Mary. He led teams that developed an

Adaptive Communication Environment The Adaptive Communication Environment (ACE) is an open source software framework used for network programming. It provides a set of object-oriented C++ classes designed to help address the inherent complexities and challenges in network program ...

(ACE), The ACE ORB (TAO), a component-integrated ACE ORB (CIAO), and an implementation of the Deployment and Configuration standard built on top of TAO (DAnCE). "ORB" refers to a key piece of the

Common Object Request Broker Architecture The Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) is a standard defined by the Object Management Group (OMG) designed to facilitate the communication of systems that are deployed on diverse platforms. CORBA enables collaboration between sy ...

. They were made available as

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

. On February 8, 2024, Schmidt was approved by the

U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee The Committee on Armed Services, sometimes abbreviated SASC for Senate Armed Services Committee, is a committee of the United States Senate empowered with legislative oversight of the nation's military, including the Department of Defens ...

to become the

Director, Operational Test and Evaluation The Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) is the principal staff assistant and adviser to the US Secretary of Defense on operational and live fire test and evaluation activities involving U.S. Department of Defense weapons systems. ...

for the

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

. He was confirmed by the full Senate on February 29, 2024.

Publications

Articles

Douglas C. Schmidt published articles in ''

C++ Report C, or c, is the third letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''cee'' (pronounced ), plural ''cees''. History "C" ...

'' and ''

C/C++ Users Journal ''C/C++ Users Journal'' was a computer magazine dedicated to the C and C++ programming languages published in the United States from 1985 to 2006. It was one of the last printed magazines to cover specifically this topic (apart from ACCU's jo ...

''. He edited "Object Interconnections" column in ''C/C++ Users Journal'', and "Patterns++" column in ''C++ Report''.

Books

* * * * * * * * * * *

References

American computer scientists American technology writers Living people 1962 births Washington University in St. Louis faculty University of California, Irvine faculty Vanderbilt University faculty {{US-academic-stub