Forrest Shull is Lead for Defense Software Acquisition Policy Research at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute (SEI). His role is to lead work with the U.S. Department of Defense, other government agencies, national labs, industry, and academic institutions to advance the use of empirically grounded information to inform policies related to software engineering. Currently, he is providing technical leadership to the DoD in support of important initiatives to improve software acquisition, culminating in the development of the Department’s first software-specific acquisition policy. Before joining the SEI, he was at the Fraunhofer Center for Experimental Software Engineering, where he founded and served as Director of the Measurement and Knowledge Management Division.
He has been a lead researcher on projects for the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation, and commercial companies.
While Editor in Chief of IEEE Software (2011–2014), he launched the digital edition of the magazine, leading to new subscribers. He created the annual Software Experts Summit, which forged connections with local software industry in cities worldwide. He integrated the free Software Engineering Radio podcast into Software and maintained the high quality that helps each episode reach 40-50,000 downloads. He has served as Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. He has served in leadership roles on IEEE conferences including ICSE, ESEM, and STC.
Since 2015 he has been a member of the Computer Society Board of Governors and since 2016 has served on the Executive Committee, where he helped institute a metrics-based Portfolio Review initiative, which reviews all of the Society’s member offerings for vitality and ongoing relevance to membership. He has served as Society Treasurer, Finance Chair of the Publications Board, and VP for Membership. He is an IEEE Senior Member and a Computer Society Golden Core Member.
He received his PhD in 1998 from the University of Maryland College Park. He is the author of over 100 peer-reviewed publications and co-editor of a handbook on empirical software engineering.
