Bill Stevenson

Current

• Engineering Project Manager, Mac OS X at Apple

Past

• Product Release Engineer at Apple Inc.
• Research Assistant / Teaching Assistant at Pennsylvania State University
• Software Engineer (Intern) at Computer Sciences Corporation

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Education

• The Pennsylvania State University
• The Pennsylvania State University
• Muhlenberg College

• University of Warwick
• University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

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2 more...

Recommended

3 people have recommended Bill

Connections

155 connections

Industry

Computer Software

Bill Stevenson’s Summary

Since 2004, I've been working at Apple in the Mac OS X Product Release Group. My responsibility is to work to ensure that future releases of Mac OS X ship with useful, high-quality features and internals while minimizing the risk that integrating such innovations poses to quality and delivery schedule. I've done work on operating systems releases including Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther", Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger", and most recently, Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard". Prior to that, I've worked at Computer Sciences Corporation on a defense project, and at a few internet-bubble start-ups which have since been aquired by other companies.

Presently I am a PhD student in the College of Information Science and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University working on a dissertation in an area of Cognitive Science. In 2004, I earned a Master's degree in Computer Science & Engineering from Pennsylvania State University with a thesis in an area of High Performance Computing. In 2002, I graduated from Muhlenberg College with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Cognitive Science. During my undergraduate career I was a visiting student at the Center for Cognitive Sciences at the University of Minnesota and in the Maths and Computing departments at the University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.

My website, including my full resume, academic CV, and weblog is at http://www.billstevenson.org

Bill Stevenson’s Specialties:

software development, software engineering, program management, project management, quality assurance, debugging, user interface design, teaching, usability, HCI, human factors

Bill Stevenson’s Experience

• Engineering Project Manager, Mac OS X

  Apple

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; AAPL; Computer Software industry)

  April 2008 — Present (2 months)

  As an Engineering Project Manager for Mac OS X, my job is to reconcile quality, security, stability, compatibility, performance, usability, and other interests with time, money, and curb appeal. I do this through attending a lot of meetings and doing a lot of email.

• Product Release Engineer

  Apple Inc.

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; AAPL; Computer Software industry)

  May 2004 — March 2008 (3 years 11 months)

  My job was to help make sure that past, current, and future Apple and third-party applications work with past, current, and future Apple hardware, including Macintosh computers and other Apple hardware products. In particular, the team I worked on is responsible for ensuring binary compatibility between major and minor operating system releases. In this position, I performed triage work, debugged application problems, and developed testing tools and infrastructure. I also used my background in human computer interaction to contribute to other projects within the company.

• Research Assistant / Teaching Assistant

  Pennsylvania State University

  (Educational Institution; 10,001 or more employees; Research industry)

  September 2002 — May 2007 (4 years 9 months)

  From Fall 2004 until May 2007, I performed research in the Applied Cognitive Science Laboratory in the Collge of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State. My research focused on human vision, information design, cognitive modeling, HCI, and software engineering.
  
  In 2008 I taught IST 413 Usability Engineering to 44 juniors and seniors. I was responsible for designing the course materials, planning and giving lectures, and creating and grading exams and course projects.
  
  Previous to that, I helped coordinate several undergraduate courses within the College of IST:
  * Fall 2006: IST 331 - Organization and Design of Information Systems: User and System Principles (with Frank E. Ritter)
  * Fall 2005: IST 110 - Introduction to Information Science and Technology (with Gerald M. Santoro)
  * Fall 2004: IST 402 - Cognitive Modeling (with Frank E. Ritter)
  * Spring 2004: IST 413 - User Interface Design and Development (with John M. Carroll)

• Software Engineer (Intern)

  Computer Sciences Corporation

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; CSC; Defense & Space industry)

  May 1998 — August 1998 (4 months)

  During my internship, I worked in a team environment on updating and maintaining the display subsystem of the AEGIS Naval Combat System. In this position, I took on an administrative and educational role, including performing project management duties and developing documentation.

Bill Stevenson’s Education

• The Pennsylvania State University

  PhD, Information Science and Technology, 2004 — 2009 (expected)

• The Pennsylvania State University

  M.Eng., Computer Science & Engineering, 2002 — 2004

  Master's Thesis Title: Automating Gibbs-Energy Modeling of Pure Elements, May 2004

• Muhlenberg College

  BS+BA (dual degree), Computer Science + Cognitive Science, 1998 — 2002

• University of Warwick

  Visiting Student, Mathematics and Computing, 2000 — 2001

• University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

  Visiting Researcher, Cognitive Science, 2000 — 2000

  NSF Summer Fellowship

  Activities and Societies:

  Center for Cognitive Science

Additional Information

Bill Stevenson’s Groups:

ACM, IEEE, SIGCSE, SIGCHI, ACLU

• Forbes.com San Francisco Group member
• Forbes.com Personal Technology Forum member
• Forbes.com Life member

Bill Stevenson’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• reference requests
• getting back in touch