I got a job!

After finishing my PhD, I got a job working at the Software Engineering Institute as an “Architecture Researcher.” I’m on the Architecture Led Modeling and Analysis team, where I’m privileged to work with people like Peter Feiler and others on — as the name implies — (software) architecture-centric modeling tools/techniques and analyses.

In some ways, the work will be very similar to what I did in graduate school —  safety assurance and hazard analysis techniques are a huge part of the work that the group does, so I’ve been able to hit the ground running. I’m working on other projects as well, of course, but nothing too far from the topics I studied at K-State. As the various projects that I work on become more mature, I’ll post more about them both here and on my research page.

Now that I’ve been here for a year (though it’s gone quickly!) I’ve found that there’s a lot to like about this job:

• We’re part of Carnegie Mellon, which is a world-class university with a particularly strong computer science program. Being near that — attending talks, having the opportunity to take classes, etc — is a great opportunity.
• There are no teaching responsibilities. I enjoyed the course that I helped teach, and I am definitely interested in teaching more in the future, but really being able to dig into research full time is wonderful.
• I’ve grown to really like living in Pittsburgh! I have a walking commute, which is pretty great, and it’s a fun town with a lot going on but it’s not so huge that I feel totally lost. I could say a lot more about Pittsburgh — and I hope to in a future post — but the upshot is that I initially wasn’t sure what to expect, but I’ve come to like it a lot.