Christopher M. Abts

Chris Abts received his Bachelors degree in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech in 1981, and his Masters degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1989. In between, he also studied for a year on scholarship at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. In 1993 he returned to USC full-time to pursue a cross-disciplinary Ph.D., combining studies from both the departments of Industrial and Systems Engineering as well as Computer Science, while conducting his major research out of the USC Center for Software Engineering, under the direction of Barry Boehm. His research interests include the areas of software metrics and cost models, software risk management, and systems architecting. The primary focus of his thesis research is in developing predictive models addressing the integration and life-cycle costs associated with using Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) software components in the development of new software systems.

Prior to returning to school full-time to pursue his doctorate, he spent ten years in industry, working as a lead systems engineer/analyst for Logicon, Inc. His work at Logicon was in the area of Strategic Nuclear Weapons Mission Planning, including automated mission planning tools development and maintenance, algorithm development, mission scenario analysis, nuclear war gaming, and simulation modeling. During his tenure at Logicon he spent a year on-site in the Force Directorate of the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon as a chief project liaison and technical facilitator. Major defense programs he supported during his time at Logicon for the US Strategic Command ran the gamut of the Strategic Triad, including the Titan, Minuteman and Peacekeeper ICBMs, the Trident ballistic submarine fleet, and the B-52, B-1 and B-2 bombers.