CSC News

Williams Named Distinguished Professor

Dr. Louis Martin-Vega, Dean of the College of Engineering, recently announced that Dr. Laurie Williams has been promoted to Distinguished Professor in Computer Science at NC State.  Williams is Interim Computer Science Department Head, Professor of Computer Science, and a co-director of the Science of Security Lablet at NC State.

Williams is one of the foremost researchers in agile software development and in the security of healthcare IT applications. She has received many accolades and awards throughout her career, including:

• NSF CAREER Award (2004)
• NC State Outstanding Teaching Award (2006)
• NC State Academy of Outstanding Teachers (2006)
• ACM SIGSOFT Influential Educator Award (2009)
• ACM Distinguished Scientist (2011)
• NC State University Faculty Scholar (2013)
• IEEE Senior Member (2015)
• NC State Research Leadership Academy (2016)
• NC State Alumni Association Outstanding Research Award (2016)
• Microsoft Research Outstanding Collaborator Award (2016)
• IEEE Fellow (2018)

Williams leads the Software Engineering Realsearch research group at NC State. With her students in the Realsearch group, she has been involved in working collaboratively with high tech industries like ABB Corporation, Cisco, IBM Corporation, Merck, Microsoft, Nortel Networks, Red Hat, Sabre Airline Solutions, SAS, Tekelec (now Oracle), and other healthcare IT companies. They also extensively evaluate open source software.

Williams’ research focuses on software security particularly in relation to healthcare IT; agile software development practices and processes, particularly continuous deployment; and software reliability, software testing and analysis. She has more than 230 refereed publications.

Wiliams received her PhD in Computer Science from the University of Utah, her MBA from Duke University Fuqua School of Business, and her BS in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University.  She worked for IBM Corporation for nine years in Raleigh, NC and Research Triangle Park, NC before returning to academia.

~coates~