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Mark Matthews |
Blending Research and Academics: Employee Benefits
from MITRE's Accelerated Graduate Degree Program
Mark Matthews
October 2003
Recognized in Fortune Magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For"
list for two consecutive years, MITRE has gained a national reputation
for being a great place to work. Among the many contributing factors
to this designation is MITRE's commitment to the continuing education
of its staff. That's no big surprise to Mark Matthews. Matthews,
a lead information systems engineer, has accomplished a lot in his
six years at MITRE. Among his achievements are participation in
the MITRE Accelerated Graduate Degree Program (AGDP) and the completion
of his Ph.D. in Information Technology from George Mason University.
MITRE's AGDP gives staff the opportunity to pursue job-related
advanced degrees while working at MITRE. It's a competitive program
open to professional staff at all locations. Participants receive
support through education assistance for tuition and books, as well
as time off to complete coursework. Each participant is also assigned
a mentor, who serves as an advisor for the duration of the program
and works with the participant to develop the thesis or dissertation
research.
"Prior to joining the corporation in 1997, I had worked for the
government on projects that had MITRE support so I was already familiar
with the high caliber of MITRE's work and the MITRE Sponsored Research
program," explains Matthews.
"I also knew about the AGDP and that it had a reputation for being
a highly competitive program," says Matthews, "and I wanted a chance
to compete for it. Looking back, the opportunity to coordinate my
dissertation research with my project work was a key factor in my
coming to MITRE."
"As it turned out, my Ph.D. research on self-adaptive software
was related to an existing MITRE research project started by Stan
Manoski called 'QOS Enabled Adaptive Application Services,'" he
continues. "After I came to MITRE, I wrote a research proposal on
dynamic software reconfiguration that had significant overlap with
my dissertation research. Then I found out about Stan's MSR and
that he was looking to staff it. As it turned out, he carved off
a slice of the project specifically for my research."
"The problem that my research addressed dealt with the inability
of software-intensive systems to adapt during run-time to dynamically
changing conditions within a shared and often resource-constrained
environment," he adds. "I was working on the development of self-adaptive
software mechanisms that enable run-time software reconfiguration
in response to dynamically changing conditions within the operational
environment. These tools would benefit sponsors with software-intensive
systems that must operate within a shared and resource constrained
environment, namely Army systems that deploy to the battlefield."
Another benefit of the AGDP program is that each participant has
a senior staff member acting as an advisor. "Jim Moore was my MITRE
mentor," says Matthews. "His assistance was invaluable, first in
getting the initial funding and then working with the MITRE Technology
Program—understanding the purpose of the program and its procedures.
He really helped me pull it all together. I was also fortunate to
have a lot of support from my management and peers."
Under the AGDP, Matthews completed his Ph.D. in the fall of 2000.
He remains connected to the academic world as an adjunct professor
at George Mason University where he has taught several software
engineering courses. Matthews has also taught the MITRE Institute's
software requirements course.
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