Alexander L. Wolf

{{About|the computer scientist|the German biathlete|Alexander Wolf|others with similar names|Alex Wolf (disambiguation)}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Alexander Lee Wolf

| image = Alw-portrait-2014.jpg

| image_size =

| caption = 2014

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1956|9|12}}

| birth_place = New York, New York, US

| death_date =

| death_place =

| nationality =

| fields = Computer Science

| workplaces = AT&T Bell Laboratories
University of Colorado Boulder
University of Lugano
Imperial College London
University of California, Santa Cruz

| alma_mater = Stuyvesant High School
Queens College, City University of New York
University of Massachusetts Amherst

| thesis_title = Language and Tool Support for Precise Interface Control

| thesis_url = http://umass.worldcat.org/title/language-and-tool-support-for-precise-interface-control/oclc/13845949

| thesis_year = 1985

| doctoral_advisor = Lori A. Clarke
Jack C. Wileden{{cite web

| url = http://www.sigsoft.org/phdDissertations/

| title = PhD Dissertations in the Area of Software Engineering

| publisher = ACM SIGSOFT

| access-date = 23 May 2014

| archive-date = 24 May 2014

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140524003809/http://www.sigsoft.org/phdDissertations/

| url-status = dead

}}

| doctoral_students =

| known_for = Software architecture
Publish/subscribe
Content-based networking
Process discovery
Software deployment

| website = https://users.soe.ucsc.edu/~alw/

| awards = ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award (2014)
ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Service Award (2012)
ACM SIGSOFT Research Impact Award (2008, 2011)
University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Computer Science Outstanding Alumni Research Award (2010)

}}

Alexander L. Wolf (born 12 September 1956) is an American computer scientist known for his research in software engineering, distributed systems,

and computer networking. He is credited, along with his collaborators, with introducing the modern study of software architecture,{{cite book

| last1 = Taylor | first1 = Richard N.

| last2 = Medvidovic | first2 = Nenad

| last3 = Dashofy | first3 = Eric

| title = Software Architecture: Foundations, Theory, and Practice

| year = 2009

| publisher = Wiley

| isbn = 978-0-470-16774-8

}}{{cite web

| url = http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/engineering/computing/newssummary/news_28-3-2014-9-59-2

| title = DoC Professor receives 2014 ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award

| first = Steve | last = Ingram

| date = 28 March 2014

| publisher = Imperial College London

| access-date = 23 May 2014

}} content-based publish/subscribe messaging,{{cite journal

| last1 = Eugster | first1 = Patrick

| last2 = Felber | first2 = Pascal

| last3 = Guerraoui | first3 = Rachid

| author-link3 = Rachid Guerraoui

| last4 = Kermarrec | first4 = Anne-Marie

| author-link4 = Anne-Marie Kermarrec

| title = The Many Faces of Publish/Subscribe

| journal = ACM Computing Surveys

| volume = 35

| issue = 2

| pages = 114–131

| date = June 2003 | doi=10.1145/857076.857078

| citeseerx = 10.1.1.10.1076

| s2cid = 5702219

}} content-based networking, automated process discovery,{{cite journal

| last1 = van der Aalst | first1 = W.M.P.

| author-link1 = W.M.P. van der Aalst

| last2 = Weijters | first2 = A.J.M.M.

| last3 = Maruster | first3 = L.

| title = Workflow Mining: Discovering Process Models from Event Logs

| journal = IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering

| volume = 16

| issue = 9

| pages = 1128–1142

| date = 2004

| doi=10.1109/tkde.2004.47

| citeseerx = 10.1.1.10.90

| s2cid = 5282914

}} and the software deployment lifecycle. Wolf's 1985 Ph.D. dissertation{{cite thesis

| last = Wolf | first = Alexander L.

| author-link = Alexander L. Wolf

| title = Language and Tool Support for Precise Interface Control

| location = University of Massachusetts Amherst (1985, advisor: Lori A. Clarke and Jack C. Wileden)

| url = http://umass.worldcat.org/title/language-and-tool-support-for-precise-interface-control/oclc/13845949

}} developed language features for expressing a module's import/export specifications and the notion of multiple interfaces for a type, both of which are now common in modern computer programming languages.

Wolf is Past President of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM){{cite web

| url = http://www.acm.org/news/featured/acm-officers-2014

| title = New officers represent more than 100,000 ACM members worldwide

| publisher = ACM

| quote = ACM has elected Alexander L. Wolf as President for a two-year term beginning July 1.

| access-date = 23 May 2014

}} and an ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, and BCS Chartered Fellow.

Early life and education

Wolf was born in New York City to Viennese Austrian immigrant parents. He attended Stuyvesant High School, a public high school specializing in mathematics and science, graduating in 1974. Wolf majored in both geology and computer science at Queens College, City University of New York, where he received his BA degree in 1979.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}} From 1979 to 1985 he studied computer science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, receiving his MS degree in 1982 and Ph.D. degree in 1985.

Career

Wolf remained at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for two years as a visiting assistant professor and research scientist working on the Arcadia Project, which was laying the technical and theoretical foundations for tool-rich, geographically distributed software development environments.{{cite conference

| last1 = Taylor | first1 = Richard N.

| last2 = Belz | first2 = Frank C.

| last3 = Clarke | first3 = Lori A.

| author-link3 = Lori A. Clarke

| last4 = Osterweil | first4 = Leon J.

| author-link4 = Leon J. Osterweil

| last5 = Selby | first5 = Richard W.y

| last6 = Wileden | first6 = Jack C.

| last7 = Wolf | first7 = Alexander L.

| last8 = Young | first8 = Michal

| title = Foundations for the Arcadia Environment Architecture

| book-title = Proc. SIGSOFT '88: Third Symposium on Software Development Environments

| location = Boston, Massachusetts

| pages = 1–13

| date = November 1988

}}

In 1987 Wolf joined AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey as a Member of the Technical Staff, where he conducted seminal research in the areas of object databases, software process, and software architecture.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}

Wolf began his academic career when he moved to the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Computer Science as an assistant professor in 1992. After promotion to associate and then full professor, he was named to the Charles V. Schelke Endowed Chair in the College of Engineering in 2005.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}} He took a two-year leave of absence to help found the Faculty of Informatics at the University of Lugano, the first such faculty in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland. In 2006, Wolf became a professor in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London. In July 2016, he became the sixth dean of the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}