Conference Speakers

Java Pro Live! brings together the expertise of Java Pro magazine’s expert authors and experienced Java pros from a wide variety of industries and occupations. Check back at this site for further updates on the stellar roster of speakers and keynote presenters at Java Pro Live! Boston 2004.

Karen Bennet's extensive knowledge of technology solutions ranges from the chip level through the middleware applications level with experience in numerous system platforms and industry sectors. In addition, she has been actively involved in all phases of product development, as well as working collaboratively with Sony in the development of the PlayStation 2 platform. Prior to joining Red Hat in late 1999 with Red Hat's acquisition of Cynus Solutions, Karen held leadership roles at Fujitsu, IBM, and Cygnus Solutions.. She is a member of the Institute of Women in Technology and IEEE and holds degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from Queen's University.

Kulvir Singh Bhogal works as a consultant for the IBM Software Services for WebSphere unit, devising and implementing WebSphere-centric solutions at customer sites across the nation. He has more than 70 patents pending in a myriad of technology areas. Kulvir has written for numerous publications including JavaPro Magazine, IBM developerWorks, Java Developer's Journal, DB2 Magazine, DevX, InformIT, and WebSphere Advisor Magazine. Kulvir holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from the University of Phoenix.

Greg Boettcher is an Enterprise Architect for the Government of Manitoba (GoM), He received a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Manitoba in '87, and has spent more than twenty years in public sector IT in application development, infrastructure, and architecture.  Prior to the current enterprise focus, Greg was chief software architect for the Better Systems Initiative; a green fields project begun in 1997 to deliver a new way of developing systems for the GoM.  He was a guest speaker at WebSphere 2000 in Florida and the IBM Java/XML Summit 2001 at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Labs, as well as co-founder of the Winnipeg Enterprise Java Users Group. A Java lecturer and article reviewer for the IEEE, Greg has been interviewed for articles appearing in PC Magazine, The Toronto Globe and Mail, The New York Times, and the San Francisco Examiner. 

Brent Carlson is VP of technology and co-founder at LogicLibrary, Inc. Recently named to InfoWorld's list of "CTOs to Watch in 2004," Carlson drives the development and delivery of LogicLibrary's products. He is a 17-year veteran of IBM, where he served as lead architect for the WebSphere Business Components project and held numerous leadership roles on the "IBM SanFrancisco Project." Carlson recently led LogicLibrary's product development team in porting the Logidex solution to the .NET platform. He is the co-author of two books: San Francisco Design Patterns: Blueprints for Business Software (with James Carey and Tim Graser) and Framework Process Patterns: Lessons Learned Developing Application Frameworks (with James Carey). Carlson is also a frequent presenter at industry conferences, including Microsoft PDC 2003, and regional user groups. He is a BEA Regional Director and holds 16 software patents, with eight more currently under evaluation.

Dave Chappell is chief technology evangelist for Sonic Software, a provider of integration products and services for the real-time enterprise. He is the author of the book Enterprise Service Bus and a member of the JSR-208 Expert Group. Dave has more than 20 years of experience in the software industry covering a broad range of roles including R&D, codeslinger, sales, support, and marketing. He has a strong passion for shaping the future of technology, and enjoys sharing his knowledge and experience with others. Chappell has spoken an many industry events and his additional books including Java Web Services (O'Reilly), Professional ebXML Foundations (Wrox) and Java Message Service (O'Reilly).

Lewis Cirne founded Wily Technology in early 1998 and invented the company's core, patented Java Agent technology. He served as the company's president and CEO until October of 2001. As Wily's chief technology officer, Lewis takes a leading role in the future technological development of the company and its products, with the goal of extending the services offered by Wily to customers deploying high-performance e-business solutions. Additionally, he is responsible for sharing with customers and partners the company's vision of bringing enterprise class performance management to the Java platform. Prior to founding Wily, Lewis held senior technical positions at Apple Computer and Hummingbird Communications. He holds several additional patents and a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College.

Dave Danielson has more than 17 years of experience in leading-edge technology products and startup companies. As CEO of Altaworks, he is responsible for building the company’s momentum, ensuring its ongoing position as the leading provider of Web enterprise performance management software solutions. Prior to joining Altaworks, Dave was the co-founder and executive vice president for Acuitive, a start-up accelerator, providing knowledge, guidance and strategic marketing assistance to young communications and networking companies.

Gary Dykstra makes his home in Boston and works closely with Compuware's most sophisticated Java customers. While at Compuware, he has appeared as a featured speaker at various trade shows and user group conferences all over the world including JavaOne, and writes technical white papers to promote Compuware technology. Gary specializes in Compuware's development tools and tackles topics like Model Driven Testing, Code Generation, and Model Driven Architecture. He explores much of his subject matter while pursuing his Masters of Computer Science at Harvard University in Cambridge.

Chris Farrell has more than 13 years experience in the computing industry, including three years at Wily. Currently the Director of Technical Marketing, Chris was previously Wily's Director of Product Management, coordinating the development and initial launch of Introscope, Wily's flagship product. Prior to Wily, he was the Senior Product Marketing Manager for Ericsson mobile phones, directing Product Marketing for the Ericsson Open professional tennis tournament. Chris spent ten years at IBM, most recently as the Product Manager for the Wireless Web Software Suite and Segment Manager for IBM Global Services Field Service Solutions. Chris' technical background includes BIOS development in the IBM PC Company as the lead software engineer on several ThinkPad systems and the first Intellistation. Chris has a BSEE and MBA from Duke University.

Marc Fleury got his Ph.D in physics from the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. He started in Sales at Sun Microsystems France and then moved to the United States where he worked on early Java enablement of SAP at SAPLabs. Marc started the JBoss project in 1999. An ex-Lieutenant in the paratroopers, Marc holds a degree in Mathematics from the Ecole Polytechnique, a masters in Theoretical Physics from the Ecole Normale ULM and was a visiting scientist at MIT during his thesis. Marc's research interest focuses on aspect-oriented middleware.

John Goodson is VP of product operations at DataDirect Technologies, where he leads product strategy, direction, and development. For more than ten years, John has worked closely with Sun and Microsoft on the development and evolution of database connectivity standards including J2EE, JDBC, .NET, ODBC, and ADO. His active memberships in various standards committees, including the JDBC Expert Group, have helped John's team develop the most technically advanced data connectivity technologies. John holds a BS in Computer Science from Virginia Tech.

Dirk Grobler has more than 10 years experience in computing industry. As engineering manager at Sun he is leading the development and integration of management tools for the Java Desktop System. Based in Hamburg, Germany, he was working on various software projects contributing to the StarOffice/OpenOffice product before joining Sun's
Desktop Group.

Kevin Jones is an instructor and course author at DevelopMentor, a company that provides in-depth, hands-on training for experienced developers. An instrumental player in managing and setting direction for DevelopMentor’s Java curriculum, Kevin has also recently become involved in Web services, particularly on the Java platform, helping write and deliver DevelopMentor’s Essential and Guerrilla Java Web Services classes. He has been involved in software development and design for many years, originally as a mainframe programmer. Since 1994, Kevin has developed and delivered Java training. Most recently, he’s been researching, writing, and delivering hands-on courses on J2EE technologies such as Servlets, Java Server Pages, and EJB. Kevin is the co-author of Servlets and JavaServer Pages: The J2EE Technology Web Tier published by Addison-Wesley.

Kwang Sik Kang is an IT architect with IBM's Software Services for WebSphere unit, consulting IBM clientele on the architecture and development of critical systems. Kang has been published in industry periodicals and is the founder of the WorldWide WebSphere User Group's Charlotte, NC Chapter. Kang is currently pursing a Master's Degree in Computer Science (CS) & holds a Bachelor's Degree in CS from SUNY Binghamton.

Chris Keene founded Persistence in 1991 with the vision of speeding and simplifying access to corporate data. Mr. Keene has appeared as a featured expert on real-time data convergence in numerous publications ranging from the Wall Street Journal to Information Week; and conferences ranging from Comdex to SD West. Mr. Keene has consistently been recognized as a software visionary, securing him a place in the Intelligent Enterprise Top Ten Technology Leaders. Prior to founding Persistence, Mr. Keene was an engagement manager with McKinsey & Company. Before that, Mr. Keene worked at Ashton-Tate and Hewlett-Packard. Mr. Keene is a frequent presenter on such topics as the future of software development, real-time information management, and data convergence through the virtual data layer. Mr. Keene earned an MBA from the Wharton School. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree with Honors in Mathematics from Stanford University.

Joe Kennedy oversees Infrastructure Services for State Street Bank. His team is responsible for managing the complexities of State Street’s vast IT infrastructure and J2EE application deployments, working across the application lifecycle to ensure that the firm’s service delivery and revenue goals are met. Based in Boston, Mass., he is a frequent speaker at IT industry events and conferences.

Dr Adam Kolawa, Parasoft co-founder and CEO, came to the United States from Poland in 1983 to pursue his Ph.D. In 1987, he and a group of fellow graduate students founded Parasoft to create value-added products that could significantly improve the software development process. Kolawa's years of experience with various software development processes has resulted in his unique insight into the high-tech industry and the uncanny ability to successfully identify technology trends. As a result, he has orchestrated the development of several successful commercial software products to meet growing industry needs to improve software quality - often before the trends have been widely accepted. Kolawa has been granted eight patents for the technologies behind these innovative tools. Kolawa, co-author of Bulletproofing Web Applications (Hungry Minds 2001), has contributed to and written commentary pieces and technical articles for various leading publications such as Software Development, CIO Magazine and SD Times. Additionally he has presented on software quality, trends and development issues at various industry conferences. Kolawa holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology. In 2001, Kolawa was awarded the Los Angeles Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the software category. Kolawa has been published in The Wall Street Journal and has appeared on CNN and CNBC.

David Linthicum is the CTO at Grand Central Communications and an expert in the application integration and open standards areas. David is the author of eight books, including his latest: Next Generation Application Integration.

Kito D. Mann has years of experience as a hands-on enterprise architect developing applications with a wide variety of technologies on several different platforms. He has been working with Java since its debut in 1995, and has written several articles on Java-related products and technologies. Kito has consulted with Fortune 500 clients, including Prudential Financial and J.P. Morgan Chase & Company, and was recently the chief architect of an educational application service provider. He is a member of the JSP 2.1 expert group, author of JavaServer Faces in Action (Manning Publications), and also maintains JSF Central (www.jsfcentral.com), a site that offers JavaServer Faces news, information, and a FAQ. He holds a BA in Computer Science from The Johns Hopkins University.

Martin Milani , CTO of Intersperse, is an industry expert on distributed computing. Most recently he was CTO of iBuilding, a Web services process-flow management and orchestration company where he led the design, application development, product management, support, and consulting teams. Under his leadership, iBuilding was named by CIO magazine as providing one of the 100 most innovative products of 2001. Martin’s areas of expertise include: operating systems, massive parallel systems, distributed operating systems and kernels, EAI, systems and network management, directory services, asynchronous messaging systems, and communications systems. He obtained a BS in Computer Science with a minor in mathematics from University of Pittsburgh.

Mike Milinkovich is Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation, a non-profit corporation seeking to build an open platform for tool integration. He has held key management positions at Oracle, WebGain, The Object People, and Object Technology International Inc. (which subsequently became a wholly-owned subsidiary of IBM), assuming responsibility for development, product management, marketing, strategic planning, finance and business development. Mike earned his MS degree in Information and Systems Sciences and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

Sudhrity Mondal is a principal architect working for BEA Technical Solutions Group. He has 14 years of industry experience and specializes in Java technology, enterprise integration solutions, object-oriented software design and development and software patterns. He has helped prominent BEA Customers to architect, design, and implement new systems using Tuxedo, J2EE, and Web Services over the past eight years. He currently consults with BEA Global Alliance partners to help design, develop, and deploy Java technology-based enterprise and Web services solutions.

Muthu Periaswamy, a manager at Capgemini, has more than eight years of experience in software architecture, analysis, design, and development. He has worked on application development and application integration projects using industry-standard methodologies, frameworks, and technologies — J2EE, Object-Oriented Analysis and Design, CORBA, Messaging, Workflows etc. — as an architect, designer, and developer. His application integration experience includes developing solutions for integrating disparate software and hardware platforms, messages, and business applications (package implementation and custom development). Muthu has worked on projects large and small and across a wide range of industries, including financial services, energy, telecom, retail, and health.

George Paolini is responsible for the research and development, product management, product marketing, and business development efforts of Borland Java products. He has held a variety of positions at Sun Microsystems, where during his eight-year tenure he was responsible for widely known launch initiatives such as the J2EE Platform, JavaOne, SunOne, and the Java Community Process. In addition, George started the JavaOne Conference. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Management from St. Mary’s College in Moranga, Calif.

Paul Patrick is responsible for the overall security product strategy at BEA. He plays a key role in driving the design and implementation of security functionality across all of BEA’s products, and is the architect for BEA’s new enterprise security infrastructure product, WebLogic Enterprise Security. Prior to becoming chief security architect, Paul was the lead architect of BEA’s ObjectBroker CORBA ORB and co-architect of WebLogic Enterprise (now Tuxedo). He is also the author of several patent applications as well as industry publications and a book on CORBA.

Jeffrey Poulin has more than 14 years of experience as the technical lead on large systems development and integration projects and currently serves as Systems Architect at Lockheed Martin Systems Integration. Dr. Poulin's landmark work on the business case for software reuse forms the basis for the reuse measurements and return on investment (ROI) models used by industry and government organizations worldwide. In addition, he has authored more 70 technical publications, including Measuring Software Reuse: Principles, Practices, and Economic Models (Addison-Wesley).

Jerry Rudisin joined Agitar as CEO in July 2003 and has served on Agitar's board of directors since November 2002. He joined Agitar from NightFire Software, a startup offering enterprise-class service management solutions to telecom carriers, where he was CEO from April 1999 to July 2003. Prior to NightFire, Jerry led marketing for almost eight years at Rational Software Corporation (now IBM Rational), joining when it was a private company with $28 million in revenue and leaving when it was a public company with $412 million in revenue and a $3 billion market capitalization. Jerry earned a master's degree in computer science from the University of California at Los Angeles and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering/computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Daniel Savarese is an independent software developer and technology advisor. He has been the founder of ORO Inc., a senior scientist at Caltech's Center for Advanced Computing Research, and VP of software development at WebOS. Daniel is the original author of the Jakarta ORO text processing packages and the Jakarta Commons Net network protocol library. He also coauthored How to Build a Beowulf (MIT Press,1999), writes the Pro Shop column for Java Pro, and serves as the Java Pro's technical editor. Currently, Daniel is developing systems that enable distributed applications to be dynamically reconfigured using virtual services.

Sushil Shukla is a principal architect working for BEA Technical Solutions Group. He has 19 years of industry experience and nine years of architecting and designing application server based large systems. He currently specializes on J2EE and Web Services-based solutions. He has extensive experience with tools and technologies used in developing large mission critical applications.

Dr. Jon Siegel is VP of Technology Transfer at the Object Management Group (OMG). He teaches the technical aspects and benefits of the Object Management Architecture including CORBA, the CORBAservices, the Domain specifications in vertical markets ranging from healthcare, life sciences, and telecommunications to manufacturing and retail systems, and the modeling specifications UML, MOF and XMI. In this capacity, John presents tutorials, seminars, and company briefings around the world, and writes magazine articles and books.

Steve Stover is the chief technology officer for Quest Software's Development Solutions. Stve has nine years of experience developing and architecting enterprise applications and has focused on Java and J2EE solutions on Oracle and other databases for the last six years. He has presented at several industry trade shows and user groups, and conducted consulting engagements for Quest's customers on architecting high-performance and scalable J2EE applications.

Srikant Subramaniam leads the WebLogic Performance Team at BEA Systems and has worked on several releases of the WebLogic Server, starting from version 4.0. He is also a regular contributor of technical articles and talks on optimizing the performance and scalability of the WebLogic Server at industry-leading publications and user conferences.

Sameer Tyagi works as a Java architect with Sun Microsystems. He remains focused on architecture,design, and implementation of large-scale enterprise applications with Java technology. Sameer has been published in industry periodicals and books on Java and J2EE technologies including Java Web Services Architecture.

Vinu Sundaresan is the technical visionary behind Collation. Prior to founding Collation, Vinu was Vice President of software engineering at Covad Communications. Under his leadership, the team deployed one of the largest J2EE application suites into production enabling a zero-touch service provisioning system. Prior to Covad, Vinu was Program Director for Development at TCSI where he led the development of distributed management software products for telecom service providers worldwide. Prior to TCSI, Vinu held senior positions at Ascom Nexion, Timeplex and NJIT. Vinu holds a MSEE from New Jersey Institute of Technology and a BSEE from REC Warangal, India.

Andrew Sweet serves as a senior solution architect for IBM's WebSphere Services and is a frequent speaker and mentor around enterprise best practices and standards-based technologies such as J2EE and Web services. Andy also has served on the boards of several industry standards groups and technology councils, including OASIS WS-Security and UDDI, Web Services on WebSphere (WoW), IBM's WebSphere Advisory Board, and Washington University's Center for the Application of Information Technology program.

John Viega is an internationally recognized leader and expert on software security. He has co-authored three books in the field, including Building Secure Software (Addison Wesley, 2001), Network Security with OpenSSL (O'Reilly, 2002) and Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++ (O'Reilly, July 2003). As CTO at Secure Software, John is responsible for core processes and algorithms for security analysis. He also works to promote better security practices for developers, and is a frequent lecturer on the topic. John is also a senior research scientist at the Cyber Security Policy & Research Institute.

Aaron Williams is the Manager of the Program Management Office (PMO) of the Java Community Process (JCP) program, where he is responsible for all of the day-to-day operations of the JCP program, as well as leading the executive committees of the JCP. Aaron has been working in the JCP PMO for the past two years, where he has led several important initiatives within the community including the latest evolution of the process (JCP 2.6). Aaron's career spans more than seven years in various segments of the Java technology market, working in such areas as interactive television and Web browsers. Prior to joining the JCP PMO, he founded his own company, providing interactive production services to television broadcasters around the world. Aaron has a Bachelors degree in Computer Engineering and a Masters degree in Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University.