Rick

Richard Rutledge

PhD Candidate

— Epictetus

In 1985, I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from the University of Georgia and shortly thereafter entered industry as a software engineer. In 1991, I became Director of Engineering for Systems Atlanta and was responsible for the development of mission essential software tools used in air traffic control (ATC). My first designed system became operational in 1993 at the southern California approach control radar facility in San Diego and was eventually installed in over 400 ATC facilities nationwide. During the 1990s, the scope of this software expanded to include data collection from many National Airspace System (NAS) devices. In 2001, we completely redesigned the system to take advantage of modern hardware, operating systems, and communications protocols. Over 100 of the largest FAA ATC facilities, 80 USAF bases, and 20 US Army posts worldwide received the new system. Both systems remain in service today. Although these are the two largest, I also designed, developed, and deployed many additional ATC systems during my career, such as an electronic flight strip system to replace a manual procedure used by controllers to monitor flight progress.

After many years as a practicing software engineer, I entered an after hours program in 2011 to work toward a Master’s degree in software engineering at Southern Polytechnic State University (now Kennesaw State University), completing my degree in 2013. During this experience, I made a crucial observation. I enjoyed conducting research more than the largely management role into which my job had evolved. Therefore, I left industry and applied to the Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing as a computer science PhD student. Under my advisor, Dr. Alessandro Orso, I work in the area at the intersection of software testing, program analysis, and symbolic execution. We have published works on differential testing and over-approximate symbolic execution. Prior published works range from recognition/classification of ambiguity to privacy in the Internet-of-Things.

  • Automating Differential Testing with Over-approximate Symbolic Execution
    R. Rutledge, A. Orso
    IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification, and Validation (ICST) 2022
  • Extending KLEE to Support Behavioral Regression Testing
    R. Rutledge, A. Orso
    International KLEE Workshop on Symbolic Execution, 2021
  • Continuous Automated Regression Testing
    R. Rutledge, A. Orso
    International KLEE Workshop on Symbolic Execution, 2018
  • Progressive Symbolic Execution Demonstration
    R. Rutledge, A. Orso
    42nd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2020
  • Zero-Overhead Path Prediction with Progressive Symbolic Execution
    R. Rutledge, S. Park, H. Kahn, A. Orso, M. Prvulovic, A. Zajic
    41st International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2019
  • Privacy Impacts of IoT Devices: A SmartTV Case Study
    R. Rutledge, A. Massey, A. Antón
    Ninth International Workshop on Requirements Engineering and Law, 2016
  • Identifying and Classifying Ambiguity for Regulatory Requirements
    A. Massey, R. Rutledge, A. Antón, P. Swire
    Requirements Engineering Conference (RE), 2014 IEEE 22nd International , vol., no., pp.83,92, 25-29 Aug. 2014
  • The Relationship of Security and Privacy for the Internet of Things
    R. Rutledge, A. Massey, A. Antón, P. Swire
    Privacy Law Scholars Conference, George Washington University Law School, 2014
  • Formal Specification-Driven Development
    R. Rutledge, S. Duggins, D. Lo, F. Tsui
    Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice (SERP) 2013
  • Paper or Pixel: Assessing Reading Performance Across Multiple Mediums
    J. Lartigue, R. Rutledge, A. Rice
    Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2013, vol. 2013, pp. 1045-1052

Profile

  • 24 years' experience in software engineering, research & development, and microcomputer and network technology
  • Industry recognized leader of software design and development teams for SAI's IDS4 and IDS5 software product suites
  • Expert in software development for air traffic control, commercial aviation, emergency management applications
  • Integration expert for development, testing, and implementation of 36 external interfaces for the IDS4 and IDS5 product lines
  • SAI Program Engineer or Technical Lead to Government for prime contractor for ACE-IDS, AFAS, FS21, AFAS II, SA-IDS4 Y2K

Education

Georgia Institute of Technology, Fall 2013 -

Atlanta, GA
  • Pursuing Ph.D. in Computer Science
  • Graduate Research Assistant

Southern Polytechnic State University, Summer 2011 - Spring 2013

Marietta, GA
  • M.S., Software Engineering
  • President, SPSU Chapter of Upsilon Pi Epsilon

Kennesaw State University, 1989 - 1990

Kennesaw, GA
  • Computer Science

University of Georgia, Fall 1981 - Spring 1985

Athens, GA
  • B.S., Mathematics
  • Strahn Scholarship Award (Senior Mathematics Award)
  • Georgia Alumni Scholarship
  • President, Mathematics Club
  • Vice President, UGA Chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon (Honorary Mathematics Fraternity)
  • Honors Program

Experience

Director of Engineering, Oct 1991 - Jun 2011

Systems Atlanta, Inc., Kennesaw, GA
  • Executive responsibility for Software Development, Engineering, Training, and Technical Support Services Departments
  • Management of all SAI Independent Research and Development (IR&D) projects, including the IDS product line and other SAI products
  • Instituted Agile development processes (Scrum)
  • Responsible for complete Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
  • Direction/leadership in development of specifications for system requirements
  • Oversight for implementation of requirements in IDS systems
  • Coordination of system programming team for development of IDS systems
  • Oversight of software testing, configuration management, and quality assurance
  • Research of new products/latest technology for utilization/adaptation in the IDS product line and other systems
  • Supervision of technical and product support services to customers

Management Representative, Quality Management System

  • Executive responsibility for ensuring that needed Quality Management System processes are established, implemented, and maintained
  • Reporter of the performance of the Quality Management System to top management
  • Reporter of needed improvements of the Quality Management System to top management
  • Liaison with external parties on matters pertaining to the Quality Management System

April 1999: Letter of commendation from David Whatley, ARW-1, FAA Program Director for Aviation Weather, for outstanding accomplishment as Program Engineer on FAA IDS Y2K Contracts awarded to SAI in 1998-99.

Systems Programmer, Oct 1990 - Oct 1991

Systems Atlanta, Inc.
  • participate in research and development of overall system design of IDS4 software product suite
  • design and development of IDS4 sub-modules in C and Assembler

Technical skills

Languages

  • Proficient in: Assembler, C, C++, Python, Java

Software & Technologies

  • Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux
  • Methodologies: Agile, Scrum

Affiliations & Interests

  • Air Traffic Control Association (ATCA)
  • Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
  • Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
  • Microsoft Partner

What I'm currently reading. This list will probably only be updated when I get around to it. And the list will rarely include research or course-work material. Just the relaxing stuff!

  • Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth
    - Diane Wolkstein and Samual Noah Kramer
  • The Ancient Orient: An Introduction to the Study of the Ancient Near East
    - Wolfram von Soden
  • Song of Wrath: The Peloponnesian War Begins
    - J.E. Lendon
  • It's Complicated
    - Danah Boyd