BU Computing Alumni Network

BUCAN Hall of Fame

James Allard

James Allard (or "J" as he is commonly known) graduated with a BA in Computer Science in 1991 and has since joined Microsoft, where he is currently one of its leading technologists--leading its Xbox operation. As General Manager for the Xbox platform, J Allard focuses on empowering the world's best game developers with the services, libraries, tools and support to create intense, action-packed experiences for gamers. Allard's group is responsible for building the operating system, creating the development libraries, producing development kits, adding networked functionality and supplying technical support to the development community. As the head of the Third Party Relations team J Allard also manages the title portfolio for Xbox working with publishers on world-class titles from concept approval through launch. As the head of the Third Party Relations team, J Allard also manages the title portfolio for Xbox working with publishers on world-class titles from concept approval through launch. J Allard sits on the Board of the Internet Society, and frequently gives lectures at technology, computing, and gaming conferences.

You can see an interview with J Allard at http://www.planetxbox.com/features/interviews/jallard

Matthew Boggie

Matthew Boggie is senior Manager at Accenture Ltd. -- a management consulting, technology services and outsourcing organization. Also, he serves on the Board of Directors of ProjectExplorer, Ltd. -- a not-for-profit organization that produces free online films and educational programming for the kindergarten to 12th grade community. Working as a manager at Accenture, Matthew Boggie has successfully applied proven business processes to complex technical implementations, and is looked to as an expert in areas of Content Management and Broadcast Information Systems. He worked on critical IT implementations for major broadcast and publishing companies, including a custom-built system that manages PBS' programming content. Mathhew Boggie was recognized by Accenture as the New York / New Jersey area Volunteer of the Year for 2005, for his work with ProjectExplorer. Matthew Boggie received his BA in Computer Science from Boston University in 1999.

For more information check: http://www.projectexplorer.org/bios/boggie.php

Chuck Connell

Chuck received his MA in Computer Science in 1984. He has worked on software systems for almost 20 years, specializing in Lotus Domino and Notes and currently runs his own consulting company. He is a frequent contributor to computer journals and magazines, writing about software development and other computing technology topics.

For more information, check: www.chc-3.com

Natalia Levina

Natalia graduated with a BA Summa Cum Laude in Computer Science and Mathematics, and MA in Mathematics, in 1994. She went on to obtain a Ph.D. in Information Technologies from MIT's Sloan School of Management in 2001, and is now an Assistant Professor at New York University's Stern School of Business.

For more information, see http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~nlevina

Melissa Leffler

Melissa Leffler is VP of Engineering at Awareness Networks, a company that builds online communities for businesses who want to leverage social media marketing to engage with their customers, build their brand, and increase revenues. Prior to joining Awareness, Melissa Leffler was chief of operations and engineering for Global Health Delivery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, where she led the creation of a collaborative community website that allows health care implementers from multiple organizations to connect and share practices, resources and tools. Melissa Leffler obtained her BA in Computer Science from Boston University in 1986.

For more information, check http://www.awarenessnetworks.com/company/management.asp

Phil Libin

Phil is the president of CoreStreet, Ltd., a Cambridge, MA company specializing in validation for large scale electronic credentials systems. Before CoreStreet, Phil was founder and CEO of Engine 5, a leading Boston-based enterprise software development company acquired by Vignette Corporation in early 2000. At Vignette, Phil served as Principal Architect and Chief Technologist for Applications. Prior to Engine 5, Phil led a number of software consulting and technology projects at ATG, Xchange and EF.

Phil Libin is a successful entrepreneur and public advocate for practical security technology. He has spoken at numerous events including the RSA conference, JavaOne, Security Millennium, Vignette Village and New York State CyberSecurity. Phil's articles on the software industry have been published on C|NET, ZDNet and Aspatore Books.

Alicia Cannon Mullen

Alicia obtained her B.A. in Computer Science from Boston University. She is currently Senior Vice President, MIS, Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Mullen recently joined the world's largest futures and options exchange as manager of all systems development efforts. Previously, she worked as project manager with JP Morgan and was most recently the CIO of First Options of Chicago. She is currently spearheading several major advanced technology initiatives to enhance CME's fair and open marketplace in the global financial community. Mullen has also been instrumental in bringing wireless, handheld technology to the trading floors. In 1996, Alicia was selected by LANTIMES as one of the top 100 Women in Computing.

For details check http://www.lantimes.com/wic/previous/96top100.html

Rebecca Norlander

Rebecca graduated from Boston University's College of Arts and Sciences, with a Bachelors degree in Computer Science in May 1991, largely focusing in her studies on computing systems and network design. She joined Microsoft in June 1991 as a developer in the Excel team, and has since established herself as one of the most capable technical leads at Microsoft, often assigned to some of the company's most critical development projects. After spending over five years as a developer with various MS Office teams, she took on the program management of the Windows Operating System OLE group, with a mandate to "fix OLE". From there, she assumed various critical program and group management roles with various Windows teams, working on various technologies, including COM, DCOM, COM+, Trident, IE, and Avalon. In September of 2003, Rebecca was asked to leave her position as Group Manager of Avalon to manage the development of the much-anticipated (and at the time badly-needed) Windows XP SP2 security-focused release, scheduled less than a year later. Her primary objective was to make aggressive, end-to-end changes to the operating system that provided shield-like security technologies for Windows, while still making XP an attractive operating systems for consumers and business customers alike in terms of functionality, and ship it in a timely manner. Following the successful, highly acclaimed release of XP SP2, on schedule in August 2004, Rebecca spent two years as a General Manager in the Windows Vista Security team responsible for the Firewall, NAP infrastructure, Windows Security Center, and Anti-Malware functionalities, intended to make security a more integral and approachable part of using a computer. Given Rebecca's unique perspective and experience with a wide set of Microsoft teams and technologies, she was chosen as the Technical Strategist for Ray Ozzie, who succeeded Bill Gates as Microsoft's Chief Software Architect in June 2006. In that role, Rebecca’s primary goal is to help drive the Software and Services vision across Microsoft -- a goal befitting her passion of "changing the world for the better through software and technology."

In addition to her impressive professional career, Rebecca is also quite active on a number of other fronts, most notably in efforts aiming to advance K-12 mathematics and science education, and to address issues related to the severe under-representation of women in Computer Science. Examples of her contributions in that capacity include her service on the Board of Advisors for The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and her frequent appearances as a speaker and panelist at various venues on that subject, including the Grace Hopper Women in Computing conference.

Kihong Park

Kihong obtained his PhD in Computer Science from Boston University in 1996. Since then, he has been on the faculty of the Computer Science Department at Purdue University, where his research centers on design and control issues in high-speed multimedia networks. Kihong has over 80 technical publications, and has edited a book "Self-Similar Network Traffic and Performance Evaluation" published by Wiley-Interscience, 2000. His thesis, entitled "Ergodicity and Mixing Rate of One-Dimensional Cellular Automata", was on a problem in theoretical probability going back to von Neumann, with applications to fault-tolerance and reliability in large scale systems such as the Internet. Kihong is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, a Fellow-at-Large of the Santa Fe Institute, and has served on several international program committees, NSF panels, and is a member of ACM and IEEE. He serves on the editorial boards of IEEE Communications Letters and Computer Networks as associate editor.

For more information, check http://www.cs.purdue.edu/faculty/park.html

Robert Popp

After obtaining his BA/MA degrees from BU in 1992, Bob joined the University of Connecticut as a graduate student, securing a PhD degree in 1995. After obtaining his PhD, Dr. Popp became a faculty member at the University of Connecticut where he taught various CS courses. Also, he joined the Air Force Lab in Rome, NY as a Visiting Research Scientist, working on distributed systems for multi-sensor, multi-target tracking for automatic target recognition systems—work which he published in dozens of articles in journals and conferences. A couple of years ago, Dr. Popp joined the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon. And, in January of this year, he was recruited by DARPA as the Deputy Director of the newly established Information Awareness Office, working with the likes of John Poindexter, the former National Security Advisor under Ronald Reagan.

Marwan Shaban

Marwan received his PhD in computer science from Boston University in 1996. He has been developing software for a living since 1988. He’s co-founded several start-ups and written packages ranging from consumer software to enterprise applications. He is currently leading the construction of client-server enterprise apps for Clear Channel Communications, a media company, using Web Services, C#, Windows Forms and ASP.NET. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife and two kids.

You can reach Marwan at mailto:shaban@cs.bu.edu

Manuela Veloso

Manuela M. Veloso is the Herbert A. Simon Professor at the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. She is the president of the International RoboCup Federation and a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. Manuela Veloso's research is on the effective construction of autonomous agents where cognition, perception, and action are combined to address planning, execution, and learning tasks. She is the recipient of a NSF CAREER award in 1995, of the Allen Newell Medal for Excellence in Research in 1997, and was selected as a Radcliffe fellow at Harvard University in 2004. Manuela Veloso received her Licenciatura and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Instituto Superior Técnico in 1980 and 1984, respectively. She attended Boston University, and received a M.A. in Computer Science in 1986. She then moved to Carnegie Mellon University and received her Ph.D. in Computer Science there in 1992.

For more information, check http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mmv/

Created on 2001-09-04

Updated on 2009-03-02

Maintained by A. Bestavros