Dr. Forrest Shull is the Lead for Defense Software Acquisition Policy Research at the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI). He leads the SEI technical response to the Department of Defense (DoD) in support of several important initiatives to improve acquisition by incorporating modern software development practices. An important milestone in this work was the development of the Department’s first software-specific acquisition policy in 2020, which is supporting rapid and iterative delivery of software capabilities to the operational environment to meet the highest priority user needs. His work today involves enablement of programs across the Department; learning from adopting programs to improve the evidence-based policy, guidance, and supporting materials; and analysis of data to assess the Department’s progress against the goal of delivering high-quality software-enabled capabilities to the warfighter more quickly.

 

Shull was the 2021 president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society, the world's leading membership organization dedicated to computer science and technology.

 

Shull joined SEI after 15 years at Fraunhofer USA, a nonprofit research and technology transfer organization, where he established and was Director of the Measurement and Knowledge Management Division. He has been a lead researcher on projects for the DoD, the NASA Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA), the NASA Safety Center, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation, and commercial companies. He received multiple Achievement Awards from NASA for “significant impact on NASA software products” and providing “value to NASA missions.” He is the author of over 100 peer-reviewed publications.