CV - Curriculum Vitae

David V. Pitts, Ph.D.

Education

PhD: Information and Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1986.
      Dissertation: A Storage Management System for a Reliable Distributed Operating System
M.S.: Information and Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1981.
B.S.: Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1979.

Technical Experience

Networking:

IP protocols, MPLS, Differentiated Services, RSVP/Integrated Services, ATM protocols.

Operating Systems/Environments:

Unix variants including Linux, Mach, OSF/1, OSF DCE, Solaris, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003.

Programming Languages/Environments/Tools:

C++ (GNU and Visual Studio), C, STL, Bison, Flex, Tcl/Tk, PThreads, Smalltalk, Python, Java, Perl, Ada, SQL, Visual Basic/ActiveX, MPI

Programming Experience:

Operating system level, object-oriented systems, multi-threaded systems, network programming, device level programming.

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Professional Experience

Assistant Professor, Math and Computer Science, Rivier College, Nashua, NH, 2010-present

Responsible for graduate course instruction, curriculum development, student advisement, and enhancement and growth of the Computer Science Masters program

Taught graduate level courses including:

distributed computing computer architecture,
operating systems Java programming,
database systems software engineering

Participated in the development of the Computer Science Advisory Board.

Directed development of the Computer Science experimental laboratory.

Chair, School of Information Technology, ITT Technical Institute, Woburn, MA, 2008-2010

Responsible for administration of the Associate Degree in Computer Network Systems and the Bachelor Degree in Information Systems

Security, including hiring faculty (all adjunct), staffing courses, student counseling and retention management, curriculum and subject matter expertise and teaching.

Oversaw start of the Bachelor's program in September 2008: from nine students to approximately 30 students.
Oversaw growth of Associates program from approximately 150 students to well over 200 students.
Exceeded targets for student retention and student success; over ninety percent retention rate for first year students.
Developed activities and organizations to enhance student engagement. Received exceptional performance award Spring 2009.

Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department, Merrimack College, 2003-2008

Responsible for teaching and developing undergraduate courses (sophomore, junior, and senior level) in database systems, operating systems, analysis of algorithms, assembly language, programming languages, compilers.

Designed, implemented, and maintained Linux laboratory using Kerberos security and NFS file sharing for computer science department.

Managed Oracle and PostgreSQL database servers for computer science department. Developed Linux cluster for advanced course work with senior students using Message Passing Interface (MPI).

Developed compiler for subset of Pascal using flex and bison tools for use in my compiler course. Generates native Intel I32 code that executes as a normal Linux program.

Designed distributed shared memory tool using MPI as the communication substrate supporting processor consistency. Project also includes plans for a simple language and compiler to support student use.

Participated in curriculum migration from three to four credit hour system.

Responsible for curriculum revision for several courses.

Courses Taught at Merrimack College:

CS162A: Data Structures
CS205A: Assembly Language
CS312A: Principles of Programming Languages
CS332A: Operating Systems
CS371A: Analysis of Algorithms
CS381A: Database Systems
CS442A: Compilers
CS490A: Directed Studies in Parallel Processing on Linux Clusters
CS490A: Directed Studies in Compilers
CS490A: Directed Studies in Distributed Shared Memory

Part-time Instructor at Daniel Webster College, University of Massachusetts at Lowell, University of Phoenix Online, 2002-2003

Taught various undergraduate courses.

Principal Member of the Technical Staff on the Next Generation Application Technologies (NGAT) project at Verizon Laboratories (formerly GTE Laboratories), 1997-2001.

Identified and researched emerging IP quality of service technologies (MPLS, Differentiated Services, and RSVP) supporting voice over IP and video.

Accomplishments include:

Measured end-to-end delays encountered over the Internet when accessed through dialup modems. Results used by business unit customer to develop requirements for voice over IP services.

Formed cross-team effort to create environment modeling Verizon’s wide-area network to explore network architectures incorporating MPLS, Differentiated Services, and RSVP for end-to-end quality of service.

Prepared and delivered numerous presentations and reports to Verizon business unit customers providing tutorials, technical assessments, and recommendations on technologies including MPLS, Differentiated Services, and RSVP.

Tracked and participated in industry standards and consortia, including IETF efforts, MPLS Forum and Next Generation Networking Conferences.

Senior Member of Technical Staff on the Distributed Computing Systems project at GTE Laboratories, 1993-1996.

Identified and researched distributed system middleware and network technologies of interest to Verizon business unit customers, focusing on scalability and performance of technologies supporting multimedia applications. Accomplishments included: Developed system for video transport using RPC and pipes of the Distributed Computing Environment of Open Software Foundation using an early generation video card.

Coded systems to demonstrate utility of Isis group message communication and threading capabilities for development of business middleware infrastructures.

Designed and implemented environment for group multicast building on Psync system from the University of Arizona. Added extensions for scalability and network support to existing C code-base. Demonstrated advantages of group communication for collaborative systems and coordinating distributed systems.

Coded a test framework to evaluate Fore System's ATM switch and interface technology, exploring performance characteristics of TCP and UDP over ATM, performance of ATM Adaptation Layers , and Fore's hardware multicast facility. Uncovered TCP performance problems with initial interface cards. Evaluated standards-based technologies, such as DCE, CORBA, COM/DCOM, XTP, and ATM for business unit customers.

Adjunct Faculty for Computer Science Department of University of Massachusetts at Lowell, 1992-1997.

Taught graduate level courses in operating systems and computer architecture.

Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, 1987-1992.

Taught graduate and undergraduate level courses in operating systems, computer architecture, distributed operating systems, OSF/1 and Mach operating systems.

Activities included:

Researched reliable, distributed object-oriented systems, including use of Isis distributed system developed at Cornell University and continuation of Clouds work from Georgia Tech.

Participated in development of Ada bindings for POSIX operating system interfaces. Led team of students on contract with Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) to port Xinu operating system to VAX architecture for use in thin-client product under evaluation by DEC.

Presented several technical training courses on C++ and object-oriented programming for Wang, Data General, and Eaton Corporation.

Instructor with the School of Information and Computer Science (ICS; became the College of Computing in 1990), at Georgia Tech, 1986-1987.

Taught various courses including the senior level courses dealing with operating systems and compilers.

Graduate Research Assistant with the Clouds project at the School of ICS, at Georgia Tech, 1984-1986.

Responsible for the design and implementation of the storage management facilities of the Clouds kernel, including the implementation of device drivers, work with the virtual memory management, and recovery management.

Graduate Teaching Assistant with the School of ICS, at Georgia Tech, 1982-1984.

Taught introductory IT and programming courses.

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Professional Activities and Honors

Received Appreciation Plaques from ITT in 2008 and 2009. Received Excellence Award from Verizon in 1999 for work on cross-team effort in end-to-end quality of service.

Session chair for Service Quality Voice over IP, Streaming at Communications Reliability and Quality Workshop of IEEE Communication Society in Tucson, AZ, 2001.

Presentation of tutorial workshop on RSVP and RTP network protocols at 2000 ACM International Multimedia Conference in Orlando, FL. Member of IEEE Computer Society Member of ACM

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Reports and Publications

Publications:

“Supporting Advanced Course Work in Computer Science”, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education North Eastern Division Conference in Kingston, RI April 2007.

“The Standard Template Library: A Guide to Successful Tool-Making”, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education North Eastern Division Conference in Kingston, RI April 2007.

“Design of a Compiler Construction Project”, Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, Volume 21, Number 6, June 2006. “Experiences with Distributed Data Management in Real-time C3 Systems,” Fortier, P. J.,

D. V. Pitts, and J. C. Sieg, Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Studies Institute on Real Time Computing, Springer-Verlag, October 1992. (Invited paper.)

“The RM Recovery Services,” Proceedings of the Twenty-First Annual International Symposium on Fault-Tolerant Computing, Montreal, Canada, June 1991.

“Experiences with Distributed Data Management in Real-time C3 Systems,” Fortier, P. J., D. V. Pitts, J. C. Sieg, and C. T. Wilkes, Proceedings of the USENIX Symposium on Experiences with Distributed and Multiprocessor Systems, Atlanta, GA March 1991.

“Recovery in the Clouds Kernel,” Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems, Columbus, OH, October 1988.

“Object Memory and Storage Management in the Clouds Kernel,” Pitts, D. V. and P. Dasgupta, Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, San Jose, CA, June 1988.

Extended Abstracts:

“An Object Oriented Testbed for Research in Reliable Distributed Systems,” Pitts, D. V. and C. T. Wilkes, Proceedings of the ACM Computer Science Conference, Louisville, KY, February 1989.

“Transaction Processing in a Distributed Real-time Control System,” Fortier, P. J., D. V. Pitts, G. Pocock, J. C. Sieg, and C. T. Wilkes, Proceedings of the ACM Computer Science Conference, San Antonio, TX, March 1991.

“Design of a Compiler Construction Project,” Pitts, D.V., Journal of the Consortium of Computer Science in Colleges, Easter Division, October 2006.

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Reports and Unpublished Papers:

“End-to-end Quality of Service Testbed for Enhanced IP Services,” Verizon Laboratories internal document, March 1999, Garrett W., D. V. Pitts, and T. Wilkes.

“A Resource Discovery Infrastructure,” Verizon Laboratories internal document, November 1995, Garrett W., D. V. Pitts, and T. Wilkes. “High-Speed Network Protocol Support for Group Communication: The ATM Adaptation Layers and the Xpress Transport Protocol,“ Verizon Laboratories internal report, July 1995, Boykin, J., W. Garrett, D. V. Pitts, and T. Wilkes.

“Infrastructure Support for Resource Discovery: ODP, DCE, and CORBA,” Verizon Laboratories internal document, April 1995, Boykin, J., W. Garrett, D. V. Pitts, and T. Wilkes.

“Scalable Group Communication: A Final Report,” Verizon Laboratories internal document, December 1994, Boykin, J., W. Garrett, D. V. Pitts, and T. Wilkes.

“A Scalable Group Communication Facility,” Verizon Laboratories internal document, August 1994, Boykin, J., W. Garrett, D. V. Pitts, and T. Wilkes. “Experiences with a Distributed System Testbed for Evaluating a Telecommunications Infrastructure,” Verizon Laboratories internal document, December 1993, Boykin, J., W. Garrett, D. V. Pitts, and T. Wilkes.

“An Attribute-based Naming Model for Distributed Systems,” University of Massachusetts at Lowell Technical Report R-90-011, March 1990. “Reducing Site Overhead During Global Searches in a Distributed System,” University of Massachusetts at Lowell Technical Report R-90-012, October 1990.

“Reducing Recovery Overhead in Distributed Systems,” University of Massachusetts at Lowell Technical Report R-89-005, August 1989. “The Clouds Segment System," Clouds Internal Reference Manual, Georgia Tech, January 1987.

“Storage Management in the Clouds Kernel,” Clouds Internal Reference Manual, Georgia Tech, January 1987.

“A Storage Management System for a Reliable Distributed Operating System,” Georgia Tech ICS technical Report, GIT-ICS-86/21, September 1986.

“Notes on a Storage Manager for the Clouds Kernel,” Georgia Tech ICS technical report, GIT-ICS-85/02, October 1985, Pitts, D. V. and E. H. Spafford.

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Past Grants and Contracts:

Co-Principal Investigator on a contract with Digital Equipment Corporation to port and do file system development for the Xinu operating system. Total support from the contract was $45,000. The contract ran from May 1991 through September 1991.

Co-Investigator on a grant from Sanders Corporation to assess future technologies useful to the development avionics systems. The total support for the grant is $40,000. The grant ran from April 1990 through June 1990.

Co-Principal Investigator on a grant from the Open Software Foundation (OSF) to develop a C++ binding for OSF's MOTIF Toolkit. The total support from the grant was $211,250. The grant ran from June 1989 through January 1990.

Professional Development Grant from Merrimack College for work with Linux clusters during summer 2006.

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