Kevin L. Mills, Ph.D.

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Professional Experience:

2001-Present, Senior Research Scientist, Information Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Dr. Mills is currently researching global behavior in distributed systems, and is working to develop a NIST program in complex systems. Previously, Dr. Mills developed, proposed, and pursued research projects in active networks, service-discovery systems, fault-tolerant networks and large-scale communications networks. Dr. Mills defined and led a seminal program of research to discover a method to express processing (CPU-time) requirements for mobile code in a form that can be meaningfully interpreted among heterogeneous nodes in an active network. As a part of this research program, Dr. Mills advised student Virginie Galtier, who obtained her Ph.D. in April 2002 from Université Henri Poincaré Nancy I based on a thesis: Éléments de gestion des ressources de calcul dans les réseaux actifs hétérogènes. His past work also includes developing a technical basis on which to compare and contrast emerging, commercial service-discovery protocols. As part of this research, Dr. Mills advised (Twente University) PhD student Vasughi Sundramoorthy, whose thesis is entitled At Home In Service Discovery. Dr. Mills has also proposed and pursued research to develop self-adaptive algorithms for optimal performance in fault-tolerant networks.  In collaboration with Jian Yuan, associate professor in the department of electronic engineering at Tsinghua University, Dr. Mills also investigated measurement and modeling approaches for large-scale communications networks. During various research activities, Dr. Mills has worked with a number of undergraduate students, including Ceryen Tan (MIT), Mackenzie Britton (SMU), Kevin Bowers (RPI), Aditya Koowal (Stanford), Christopher Kelley (Williams), and Joseph Chenhensa (UC Davis).

1999-2001, Chief, Advanced Networking Technologies Division, Information Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Dr. Mills directed a division whose mission is to provide the networking industry with the best in test and measurement technology. The division consists of approximately sixty researchers, split about 50-50 between permanent staff researchers and guest researchers from various research laboratories, universities, and companies from around the globe.  Dr. Mills led the formulation of research objectives, managed the allocation of resources (about $7.5 million annually), evaluated the progress of research projects, and represented the division before various customers, sponsors, collaborators, and advisers. When Dr. Mills assumed this job the division faced a $3M deficit for the upcoming year; three years later, Dr. Mills left the job with the division showing a $2.5M end-of-year surplus. In addition, an annual review panel from the National Academy of Sciences reported that the focus and merit of the projects in the division improved in each of the three years under the leadership of Dr. Mills.

In addition to running the division, Dr. Mills pursued his own research interests, which focused on networking software for smart spaces and pervasive computing, on methods to improve the design, testing and evaluation of distributed systems, on innovative techniques to measure the effectiveness of networking protocols, and on tools and techniques to improve the information technology standards setting process. After three years in the job, Dr. Mills left his management position to devote more time to research.

1996-1998, Program Manager, Information Technology Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Dr. Mills defined and managed a research program to advance the state of technology available to support distributed collaboration and visualization. This program, beginning from existing technologies for real-time conferencing, multi-user domains, and virtual environments, aimed to provide users, separated in time and space, with new techniques to collaborate effectively through computers and networks.

While at DARPA, Dr. Mills also managed a program to enable mobile information systems to become first class citizens in the global internet. The program aims to achieve advances in four areas: (1) untethered nodes that transmit at 10 Mbps over a kilometer, using modest power, while being packaged in modular handheld units,(2) networks that adapt to changing transmission conditions, automatically reconfiguring as needed, (3) multihop networks that can route data across wireless hops and wired hops in an integrated fashion, and (4) applications that can adapt to varying connection quality and to disconnection from the network. The program funds research at major U.S. universities and within U.S. industry.

1992-1995, Doctoral Student, School for Information Technology and Engineering, George Mason University

Conducted research concerning methods to automate the generation of concurrent designs for real-time software. Produced a doctoral thesis, Automated Generation Of Concurrent Designs For Real-Time Software, that specifies a knowledge-based approach to design generation. The dissertation specifies two semantic models, one to represent specifications in the form of flow graphs and one to represent concurrent designs and run-time environments, and defines two sets of expert-system rules, one set infers the presence of semantic concepts from flow graphs and the second set generates instances of concurrent designs from semantic interpretations of flow graphs. In addition to the dissertation, Dr. Mills implemented the specifications, using an expert-system shell to create a prototype Concurrent Designer's Assistant (CODA). Dr. Mills applied CODA to generate 10 designs from four real-time problems. Dr. Mills compared the results obtained using CODA with designs created by human designers for the same four real-time problems.

In addition to his dissertation research, Dr. Mills studied software engineering theory, including requirements engineering, design (both formal and semi-formal), construction (both object-based and object-oriented), and testing. Dr. Mills conducted an experiment to evaluate the effect of various forms of specification on software functional testing. The results of this experiment were published as a journal paper. While at George Mason, Dr. Mills also studied computer network performance analysis, simulation modeling, and expert database systems.

1987-1992, Chief, Systems and Network Architecture Division, Computer Systems Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Managed a division of professional computer scientists, mathematicians, and electrical engineers. The division was responsible for developing international consensus among the users and manufacturers of computer and communications equipment so that interoperable computer communications products can be purchased off the shelf, freeing buyers from reliance upon a single computer vendor for all computing needs. This program aimed to save the U.S. Government, alone, hundreds of millions of dollars each year. The division also acted as adviser to U.S. Government agencies that implement computer networks.

The work involved interaction with computer and communications manufacturers, other governments, national and international standards organizations, industrial and government computer users, and academia. The Division Chief established broad program directions, delegated specific areas of responsibility, allocated and monitored a multi-million dollar budget, and represented the NIST on matters of policy.

1982-1987 Manager, Protocol Performance, Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology, National Bureau of Standards

Established the first program in Open System Interconnection (OSI) protocol performance. The program started with two computer scientists and grew to an internationally recognized program staffed by ten computer scientists, mathematicians, and electrical engineers. This program resulted in improvements to international standard protocols, permitting better throughput over high-speed, long-delay, satellite channels. The program also resulted in publication of protocol performance benchmarks cited in industry publications.

The work involved analytical and simulation modeling, experiment design, protocol prototype implementation, and performance measurements. The work brought cooperation with organizations such as COMSAT, Intel, Telephonica, University of Virginia, IBM Zurich Research Laboratories, and the Polytechnic University of Madrid.

1981, Senior Systems Programmer, Tesdata Systems Corporation

Managed a staff of four system programmers responsible for development of communications performance measurement products. Technical contributions included: (i) design and implementation of banked memory software for a Tesdata operating system, and (ii) design and implementation of monitors for Honeywell VIP, Burroughs poll-select, and IBM PARS protocols.

1976-1980, Senior Systems Analyst, System Development Corporation

Designed a prototype graphics conferencing protocol and communications subsystem. Designed and tested prototype intelligent graphics workstations. Made several other key contributions including: (i) design and implementation of a crisis, message-traffic, network simulation model, (ii) design and implementation of a sophisticated DBMS report writing system, and (iii) specification of services for a network command language.

1973-1976, Automated Data Systems Officer, United States Marine Corps

Designed and directed functional and performance tests for Marine Corps automated air traffic control systems. The systems consisted of real-time data communications of message traffic and real-time control of displays and consoles.

Other Career Information

Between 1981 and 1984, Dr. Mills established and ran a part-time consulting business. The company, Reston Computing Consultants, Inc., provided consulting services and software development to Tesdata Systems Corporation, System Development Corporation and Protocols Communications and Standards, Inc.

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