Weiss Named First Recipient of Nguyen Software Engineering Chair

Iowa State University President Gregory L. Geoffroy presents the Lanh and Oanh Nguyen Endowed Chair in Software Engineering medallion to computer science professor David Weiss.

AMES, Iowa — David Weiss, director of Avaya Laboratories’ software technology research department, has been named the first holder of the Lanh and Oanh Nguyen Endowed Chair in Software Engineering at Iowa State University.

The endowed faculty position was established in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ department of computer science by Long V. Nguyen (Ph.D., ‘75, computer science) and his wife Kimmy of McLean, Va., and is named in honor of Nguyen’s father and mother.

“It is a great pleasure for my family to establish this endowed chair in honor of my parents, who always instilled the importance of education in me,” Long Nguyen said. “I received a first-class education at Iowa State thanks to the generous people of Iowa. This represents a token of our appreciation and continues our investment in education in the State of Iowa.”

Weiss joined the computer science faculty this fall after a long career in private industry. Besides his position with Avaya Laboratories, Weiss worked as the director of Lucent Technologies’ software production research department, and as a distinguished member of AT&T Bell Laboratories. He is a former senior analyst with the U.S. Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment.

He earned both doctorate and master’s degrees in computer science from the University of Maryland and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Union College.

While at Avaya Laboratories, Weiss create that firm’s software technology research department with research focusing on ways to improve Avaya’s software development process. ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, named Weiss’ department the second best industrial software engineering research organization in the world.

Weiss was recruited to Iowa State through the Nguyen Endowed Chair in Software Engineering in support of the recently created undergraduate software engineering degree program on campus. Software engineering is an evolving element of the computer science field and has become a significant focus of instruction and research in the department.

“This generous gift by Long and Kimmy Nguyen has helped better position the department of computer science and has begun the transformation of the department from excellence to superiority in this burgeoning field,” said Carl Chang, professor and chair of the department of computer science.

In 1985, Nguyen established Pragmatics, Inc., a growing information technology firm based in McLean, Va. with 600 employees and $125M in annual revenues. Pragmatics specializes in software engineering, systems engineering, information assurance, program management, and IT infrastructure management. Pragmatics provides mission critical technology solutions to Federal clients, such as development of Defense Department command and control systems, software development of the FAA’s next generation Air Traffic Control System, or testing of the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection Systems. Prior to Pragmatics, Dr. Nguyen had a successful career at IBM and a distinguished academic career, in which he taught computer science at Georgetown University and Indiana University-Purdue University.

This gift is part of Campaign Iowa State: With Pride and Purpose, the university’s $800 million fundraising effort. More than $715 million in gifts and future commitments for facilities and student, faculty and programmatic support have been made to Campaign Iowa State.