Clifford Huff
Clifford C. Huff
Senior Member of Technical Staff
Information Technology
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Key responsibilities
Current responsibilities include work on the modernization of the SEI website, web technology scout for the SEI, and Masters of Software Engineering (MSE) studio mentor for the Pangea CMU MSE studio project team.
The Pangea Team is developing a software architecture evolution tool for CMU's School of Computer Science. The goals of this tool is to:
- represent architecture evolution paths
- compare successive architectures on a path
- perform trade-off analyses among different paths of evolution
Teams
IT Systems Engineering & Application Support, MSE Mentor, SEI Web Modernization, SEI Exchange Project, Web Mentor
Professional Background
Clifford Huff's other activities at the SEI have included efforts with the Web Strategy Team, Web Implementation Team, Distance Education Team, Software Engineering Information Repository Team, CASE Technology Project, Computing Facilities and Programming Environment Evaluation project.
As a member of the SEI Web Strategy Team (WST) worked on a recommended long term corporate strategy for Web communication at the SEI.
As a member of the SEI Web Implementation Team (WIT) worked on the redesign of the current SEI Web site.
As a member of the Distance Education Team developed web-based courseware and tailored Mitre Collaborative Virtual Workspace (COW) for the National Guard.
As a member of the Software Engineering Information Repository Team was the technical coordination, planning and development of the Web-based Software Engineering Information Repository (SEIR).
As a member of the CASE Technology Project, researched and authored an in-depth report on the State-of-the-Art in Scientific Visualization. SEI Web author of the extensive Software Configuration Management area, one of the most popular areas on the original SEI World Wide Web site. Orchestrated and documented two very productive workshops on selected CASE adoption and management issues.
As a member of the computing facilities staff was a key contributor and implementor of the Institute's initial Baseline Computing Environment.
As a member of Programming Environment Evaluation Project coordinated all activities for the acquisition, training and initial operation of the SEI's Rational R1000 Ada development system.
As a MSE mentor, mentored the Kiwi, Aries, Vigilant, Charon, Zephyr, Gryphon , Krypto, PUMA, Charlatans, Mission Possible, Sapphire, Seredipity and Sultans of Sim studio projects. Kiwi was a Java-based cross-platform groupware tool. Aries was a web- based paint management system for PPG. Vigilant was a patient information management system. Charon was an ORB load simulator for Charles Schwab. Zephyr and Gryphon developed a components of a system to help airlines meet Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) guidelines for a Advanced Qualification Program (AQP). AQP is a method of qualifying, training, evaluating, certifying, and otherwise ensuring the competency of flight crew members, flight attendants, aircraft dispatchers, instructors, evaluators, and other airlines operations personnel subject to Federal Aviation Regulations. Krypto developed a 100% Java implementation of an SEI developed Netscape Database KeyStore (NDBS). NDBS is a programmatic library for extracting Private Keys and X.509 certificates from Netscape products. Since Netscape's NSS would not divulge private key material, NDBS was built so that Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)-enabled products could be able to access private keys and certificates from Netscape's database. PUMA developed a modular plugin architecture and a reference implementation for Palm OS handheld devices. The Charlatans developed software to manage and transfer images from a Casio Wrist Camera to a wide range of Palm OS compatible handheld PDA's. The Mission Possible Team ehnanced an Automated Model Complier (ACM) tool for the Ford Motor Company. A model compiler is a tool that takes a set of models and an architectural description and uses this information to automatically create a new, larger model called an assembly. The Sapphire Team was part of a global development environment for Siemens that entails universities in United States, Ireland and India. The goal of the project was to help build a system that manages the different subsytems. The Seredipity Team worked for Bosch Research on a 3-D visualizer for placement of various types of security sensors to insure different levels of security compliance. The Sutans of Sim Team developed a search and rescue simulator for L3 Communications. The simulator is intended to allow analysts to set up and run a multitude of scenarios with varying sets of parameters, including the number and location of beacons and rescue platforms, frequencies, initial signal strengths, receiver capabilities and waypoints to represent their movement.
As a MSE student, participated with and lead a graduate student development team. The team developed software for a NASA-sponsored CMU-developed robot called the Tessellator for servicing tiles on NASA's fleet of Space Shuttles.
Prior to working at the SEI, he was the Technical Director for Office & Engineering Systems program at GTE Government Systems (now General Dynamics Electronic Systems).
While serving in the Air Force, he was involved with satellite test and control systems at the Air Force Satellite Control Facility at Onizuka Air Station in Sunnyvale, California. His Air Force projects included:
- development of systems specifications and operational concepts and life cycle cost analysis for a hundred million dollar plus remote tracking station improvement program
- engineering management for the acquisition planning and technical integration of a $15M wideband satellite communications system
- headed the implementation of $3.5M state of the art radiometric ground station to support the next generation Defense Communications Satellites
Publications (recent or significant)
- The State of the Art in Scientific Visualization, Special Report, September 1995
- Spinning a Web: Publishing the SEI Software Configuration Management Research on the World Wide Web CMU/SEI-94-TR-018
- Elements of a Realistic CASE Tool Adoption Budget, Communications of the ACM, April 1992
- Multivendor Environment Fosters Technology Transition, EDU Magazine, Winter 1988/89
Education
- BSEE United States Air Force Academy
- MSE Carnegie Mellon University
- Numerous seminars and conventions on information management, computing technology & applications, digital communications, programming languages and project management.
Professional Memberships and Activities
