Nancy R. Mead

{{short description|American computer scientist}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Nancy R. Mead

| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1942}}

| birth_place = New Jersey

| nationality = American

| ethnicity =

| field = Computer Science and Software Engineering

| work_institution = Carnegie Mellon University

| alma_mater = New York University

| doctoral_advisor = Stanley Preiser{{MathGenealogy|id=21644}}

| known_for = Security, Software Engineering Education

}}

Nancy Rose Mead (born in 1942) is an American computer scientist. She is known for her contributions to security, software engineering education and requirements.

Background and education

Mead spent her childhood in New Jersey, growing up in a 2nd generation Armenian immigrant family. She had an early interest in mathematics. This led to a mathematics major at New York University. from which she received a BA in mathematics and French (Honors) in 1963, and an MS in mathematics in 1967. Mead received her PhD in mathematics in 1983 from the Polytechnic Institute of New York (now the NYU Tandon School of Engineering). Her thesis, "Complexity Measures for System Design", was supervised by Stanley Preiser.

Career

Mead spent a significant part of her career at IBM{{cite web | title=Nancy R Mead - Lero The Irish Software Research Centre

|url=https://www.lero.ie/parnasfellows/NancyMead

}} (1966-1990), in software development and management of large real-time systems, software engineering technology, and software engineering education. She was named a Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM in 1988.

Mead’s research at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute (1990-2018) was primarily in the study of software engineering and cybersecurity engineering, particularly software and security requirements, and the development of software assurance and software engineering curricula. She was the Principal Investigator and primary developer of the SQUARE method

{{cite web

|title=Security Quality Requirements Engineering (SQUARE) |date=5 January 2017

|publisher=Carnegie Mellon University

|url=https://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?assetid=484884

|accessdate=19 January 2021

}}

for security requirements engineering, and led the Software Assurance Curriculum Project,{{cite web

|title=Software Assurance Curriculum Project Volume I: Master of Software Assurance Reference Curriculum |date=31 July 2010

|publisher=Carnegie Mellon University

|url=https://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?assetid=9415

|accessdate=19 January 2021

}} which included the Master of Software Assurance Reference Curriculum recognized by IEEE and ACM. At present, her interests are in threat modelling and supply chain risk management.

Awards and honors

She was named a Fellow of the IEEE in 2006,{{cite web

|title=IEEE Fellows Directory Nancy Mead

|url=

https://services27.ieee.org/fellowsdirectory/getdetailprofile.html?custNum=U7iRzjPU6YrQbzxS7UZFsQ%3D%3D&bccaptions=Alphabetical%20Listing%20&bclocations=%2Ffellowsdirectory%2FmenuALPHABETICAL.html

|accessdate=19 January 2021

}}

and a Distinguished Educator of the ACM in 2009.

The Nancy Mead Award for Excellence in Software Engineering Education,{{cite web | title=Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T)

|url=https://conferences.computer.org/cseet/

|accessdate=19 January 2021

}} given by the IEEE Conference on Software Engineering Education & Training (CSEE&T) since 2010, is named for her in honor of her leading role in establishing that conference. She was named a Fellow of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in 2013.{{cite web |title=Mead Named SEI Fellow

|url=https://www.sei.cmu.edu/news-events/news/article.cfm?assetid=77178

|accessdate=19 January 2021

}} In 2015 she received the Distinguished Education Award from the IEEE Computer Society Technical Council on Software Engineering (TCSE).{{cite web | title=2015 IEEE CS TCSE Software Engineering Distinguished Education Award Nancy Mead

|url=https://tc.computer.org/tcse/2016/02/08/2015-ieee-cs-tcse-software-engineering-distinguished-education-award/

|accessdate=19 January 2021

}} In 2019 she was awarded the Parnas Fellowship

by Lero, the Irish Software Research Centre. In 2020 she was selected for the IEEE Distinguished Visitor Program.

{{cite web | title=Nancy Mead 2020–2022 Distinguished Speaker

|date=30 January 2020

|url=https://www.computer.org/profiles/nancy-mead

|accessdate=19 January 2021

}}

In 2024, she was selected for the IEEE Women in Services Computing Award with Yanchun Sun of Peking University.{{cite book

|url=http://tab.computer.org/tcsvc/activities/#awards

|title=Activities

|chapter=IEEE TCSVC Awards

|publisher=IEEE Computer Society Technical Community on Services Computing

|date=2024

}}

Publications

Mead has more than 150 publications.

{{cite web | title=DBLP Nancy R. Mead

|url=https://dblp.org/pid/91/4770.html

|accessdate=19 January 2021

}}

She has co-authored two books:

  • Software Security Engineering (Addison-Wesley 2008)

{{cite book

|vauthors=Allen J, Barnum S, Ellison R, McGraw G, Mead, N

|title=Software Security Engineering: A Guide for Project Managers

|year=2008

|publisher=Addison-Wesley

|isbn=9780321509178

}}

  • Cyber Security Engineering (Addison-Wesley 2016).{{cite book

|first1=Nancy

|last1=Mead

|first2=Carol

|last2=Woody

|title=Cyber Security Engineering: A Practical Approach for Systems and Software Assurance

|year=2017

|publisher=Addison-Wesley

|isbn=9780134189802

}}

The following are a selection of her most-cited{{cite web | title="Google Scholar Nancy Mead"

|url=https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=VqnrrjwAAAAJ

|accessdate=19 January 2021

}}

papers:

  • R Wieringa, N Maiden, N Mead, C Rolland. "[http://robertfeldt.net/advice/wieringa_2006_re_paper_classification_and_eval_criteria.pdf Requirements engineering paper classification and evaluation criteria: a proposal and a discussion]", Requirements engineering 11 (1), 102-107
  • NR Mead, T Stehney, "[https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a443493.pdf Security quality requirements engineering (SQUARE) methodology]", ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes 30 (4), 1-7
  • RJ Ellison, DA Fisher, RC Linger, HF Lipson, TA Longstaff, NR Mead, "[https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/807008 Survivability: Protecting your critical systems]", IEEE Internet Computing 3 (6), 55-63,
  • RJ Ellison, RC Linger, T Longstaff, NR Mead, "[http://ggn.dronacharya.info/ITDept/Downloads/QuestionBank/Odd/V%20sem/Survivable_Network_System_Analysis.pdf Survivable network system analysis: A case study]", IEEE software 16 (4), 70-77

References

{{reflist|2}}