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Biography
Jack Davidson received his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of
Arizona in 1981. He joined UVa as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in
1982, becoming Associate Professor in 1988 and Professor in 1998. In 1997 he
received the McGraw-Hill "Most Successful New title" Award for his best-selling
C++ textbook (co-authored with Jim Cohoon). His more recent book Java Program
Design was published in 2003. He is Associate Editor for ACM's Transactions on
Architecture and Code Optimization. He has directed eight Ph.D. theses and is
the co-author of two books and over 120 technical articles.
Dr. Davidson’s research focuses on two complementary areas of computer science:
compiler construction and computer architecture. Since the performance of a
computer system depends on interaction between the hardware and software, little
advantage is gained by including architectural enhancements that the compiler
cannot exploit. Davidson's research investigates this interaction with a goal of
developing effective solutions. In compiler construction, he investigates the
development of easily retargetable, highly optimizing compilers. Earlier
research developed an intermediate representation, RTL, which is the basis for
two widely distributed and widely used retargetable, optimizing compilers, the
GNU C compiler and vpo. He was a principal investigator of the National Compiler
Infrastructure (NCI) project, which developed Zephyr, a tool suite for compiler
and architecture research. Currently he is designing and building new software
development environments for high-performance embedded applications (e.g.,
wireless video, digital cameras, etc.). He is also working on dynamic
optimization with a focus software security.
Dr. Davidson received a Phoenix RFP Award in 2005 for his project Techniques and
Tools for Software Assurance and a Phoenix and SSCLI Award in 2006 for Using
Phoenix in Anti-Virus Curricula project. |
DR.
JACK DAVIDSON