About the Author

Jason McC. Smith received his Ph.D. in computer science in 2005 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where the Elemental Design Patterns were born as part of the System for Pattern Query and Recognition project. Dr. Smith has been awarded two U.S. patents for research performed at UNC-CH, one for technologies related to SPQR and one for the FaceTop distributed document collaboration system.

Prior to that, Dr. Smith spent many years in industry as a physics simulation engineer and consultant building off of dual B.Sc. degrees in physics and mathematics from the University of Washington. Projects of note included sonar and oceanic environment simulation, electronic engineering simulation, commercial and military aircraft flight simulation, and real-time graphical training systems.

Four years at IBM Watson Research provided Dr. Smith with an opportunity to apply the lessons of SPQR and the EDP catalog and compositional approach to immense bodies of software, both legacy and modern.

Dr. Smith is currently Senior Research Scientist at The Software Revolution, Inc., in Kirkland, Washington, where he continues to refine the EDP catalog and look for ways to enhance the company’s goal of automated modernization and transformation of legacy systems.