- Short Biography:
- Robert France was born in Jamaica and received his B.Sc. in Natural Sciences with First Class Honors from the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago. He attended Massey University in New Zealand under a Commonwealth Scholarship, where he graduated with a Ph.D. in Computer Science. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Colorado State University. His research on model-driven software development focuses on providing software developers with mathematically-based software modeling languages and supporting analysis tools that they can use to specify and analyze critical software properties (e.g., behavioral and security properties). He is also actively engaged in research on domain-specific modeling languages, model-based approaches to software product line engineering, and models@runtime. Dr. France is a founding editor-in-chief of the Springer journal on Software and Systems Modeling, and a founding steering committee member of the international conference series on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS). In 2008 he and his co-authors (Andy Evans, Kevin Lano, Bernard Runpe) were awarded the MODELS 2008 Ten Year Most Influential Paper Award for the paper The UML as a Formal Modeling Notation. In 2013 he was awarded a 5-year International Chair at INRIA, the French National Institute for research in Computational Sciences. Dr. France was awarded a 2014 Senior Dahl-Nygaard Award for his research contributions by AITO, the group that organizes the European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming. Dr. France was also awarded a Colorado State University, College of Natural Sciences Professor Laureate in 2014.
- Career Overview:
"I am always worried by the word encourage. Too often it means that with the best of intentions we praise what is third rate and omit to point out that Art requires talent … real talent and not mere literacy in any medium. I see no substitute for passion, internally generated, and hard work." Martin Carter, Guyanese poet, 1927-1997.
"Blessed are those who can give without remembering and accept without forgetting." Elizabeth Bibesco
"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." Mark Twain
"Freedom to be your best means nothing unless you're willing to do your best." Colin Powell
"It doesn’t matter if you try and try and try again, and
fail. It does matter if you try and fail, and fail to try again." Charles
Kettering
"Your history is not your destiny." Alan Cohen