Name: David Notkin
Title: Professor
Company: Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of
Washington
Contact Info: notkin@cs.washington.edu
Web page: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/notkin
How I arrived at my present job (academic and other influences): I started playing with computers when I was in high school, back in about 1972. Our high school brought in three mini-computers (complete with paper tape for storing our BASIC programs), and in about a week a couple of friends and I were the "experts" with the computers. Indeed, the company that provided them to the school hired two of us to write applications the next summer. Then I was off to college at Brown University, where Andy van Dam was a tremendous influence, exciting me and countless others about computing. Then off to graduate school at Carnegie Mellon, where Nico Habermann showed me how exciting and rewarding research could be. And that landed me in my faculty position in 1984, where I've been ever since.
How I organize my day: I'm a pretty unorganized person, but somehow I seem to get most stuff done (although there are surely exceptions). I am most effective in the morning: since I've had kids, though, I don't get to spend that time working. I'm looking forward to getting that time back sometime!
Amount of time spent working daily (at home and office): Probably 60 hours a week, on average. A lot of that is at home.
What I do to get myself thinking creatively: I probably do best by writing stuff down, often free-flow. Perhaps I do even better talking to people at length about high-level and often fuzzy ideas, which helps me focus on the most important ideas.
My problem-solving strategy: I work best moving back and forth from abstract to concrete, frequently and rapidly.
What I do to relieve stress: Exercise. I practiced the Japanese martial art of Aikido for over 18 years. Although I'm not practicing now, physical exercise helps a lot.
My hero, mentor, or person I most admire and why: Andy van Dam and Nico Habermann, my undergrad and grad advisers, both taught me more than I could convey.
What I do to mentor those who work for me: Listen, listen, listen. And ask question after question.
What inspires, motivates, or gets me excited about my job on a daily basis: It's always different. Also, I fundamentally believe in the importance and value of the three missions of the university --- education, research, and service.
Biography: David Notkin is the Boeing Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. Before joining the faculty in 1984, he received his PhD degree at Carnegie Mellon University in 1984 and his ScB degree at Brown University in 1977. Dr. Notkin received the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1988; served as the program chair of the First ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering; served as program co-chair of the 17th International Conference on Software Engineering; chaired the Steering committee of the International Conference on Software Engineering (1994-1996); served as charter associate editor of both ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology and the Journal of Programming Languages; serves as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering; was named as an ACM Fellow in 1998; and serves as the chair of ACM SIGSOFT. His research interests are in software engineering in general and in software evolution in particular. Dr. Notkin is a senior member of the IEEE.
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Location: www.acm.org/crossroads/dayinlife/bios/david_notkin.html