Professor Leon J. Osterweil1961
Pioneer software engineering educator and researcher
Leon J. (Lee) Osterweil graduated from Weequahic in January 1961 and went on to attend Princeton. There, in 1962, he learned to program a computer, a step that shaped the rest of his life. Lee graduated from Princeton with an AB in Mathematics in 1965, then got his MS and PhD, also in Mathematics, from the University of Maryland. But his passion increasingly was for computers and programming. After getting his PhD in 1971 he became the third faculty member in the newly formed Computer Science Department at the University of Colorado Boulder. Some of his research on how to detect errors in programs, still underpins efforts to make computer systems safer and more reliable. Lee became Chair of Computer Science at CU in 1982, and founded CU’s undergraduate program in Computer Science. He moved to the University of California Irvine, then to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he served as Dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, supervising nine Departments, including Mathematics, Physics, Biology, and Computer Science.
Lee continued to do innovative Computer Science research, publishing hundreds of papers, addressing such issues as how to understand and systematically improve processes such as elections, and heart surgery. He acquired tens of millions of dollars in research funding for this work. Lee has given research talks on all six inhabited continents, and has trained about 20 PhD students, who have been producing students of their own, giving him hundreds of PhD descendants all over the world, who are Department Chairs, Deans, and winners of major awards. Lee was given a Lifetime Achievement Award for his research, as well as Lifetime Achievement Awards for Education, and for Service, all from the leading international Computer Science professional society.
Lee has lived in Silver Spring MD, Boulder CO, Newport Beach CA, Seattle WA, Amherst MA, and London UK, with extended visits in Paris, Sydney and Melbourne. Visiting research colleagues and attending international meetings has taken him all over the world. He has floated down the Nile, the Yangtze, and the Amazon rivers; hammered on the Berlin Wall, walked on the Great Wall of China, and stood in awe at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem; gone on safari in Africa; seen the Taj Mahal; flown over Africa’s Victoria Falls; floated on the Dead Sea; seen the midnight sun in Norway; and stood at the southernmost points of Africa, India, and mainland Australia. He has liaised with kangaroos, emus, and koalas in Australia; with elephants, hippos, gnus, and lions in Africa; with yaks in Tibet; and with puffins in the Shetland Islands.
Lee is the proud father of Eric, a Professor of Computer Science at George Mason University, and Emily, a Professor at Harvard Medical School who heads a research lab at Boston Childrens Hospital. Each has given him an adored grandchild. Through his second marriage to Lori Clarke, an internationally prominent Computer Scientist, and his soulmate, he also has an additional three step-children and three step-grandchildren. Lee and Lori are both retired now, and live in a lovely house that borders a beautiful Cape Cod salt marsh where they watch egrets, ospreys, and herons from their deck, and watch the tides come and go each day. Their world-travel days are over now, and they are glad that they were able to enjoy them while younger and more vigorous.
Looking back, Lee attributes his success in large part to a lot of hard work and dogged determination. He thinks he made a lot of mistakes, but got a few things right too. He also sees that he benefitted from a lot luck, the four-letter word to which many successful people don’t like to give credit. Having lost his parents while still in school, he was lucky to get some good advice from friends. Lee thinks he was lucky to have met Lori Clarke, the love of his life, lucky to have caught the computer wave very early on, and lucky that his gamble on computers provided a good career path. And Leon Osterweil knows that he was lucky to have gotten a strong start on his education and his career from his years at Weequahic High School.
Lee continued to do innovative Computer Science research, publishing hundreds of papers, addressing such issues as how to understand and systematically improve processes such as elections, and heart surgery. He acquired tens of millions of dollars in research funding for this work. Lee has given research talks on all six inhabited continents, and has trained about 20 PhD students, who have been producing students of their own, giving him hundreds of PhD descendants all over the world, who are Department Chairs, Deans, and winners of major awards. Lee was given a Lifetime Achievement Award for his research, as well as Lifetime Achievement Awards for Education, and for Service, all from the leading international Computer Science professional society.
Lee has lived in Silver Spring MD, Boulder CO, Newport Beach CA, Seattle WA, Amherst MA, and London UK, with extended visits in Paris, Sydney and Melbourne. Visiting research colleagues and attending international meetings has taken him all over the world. He has floated down the Nile, the Yangtze, and the Amazon rivers; hammered on the Berlin Wall, walked on the Great Wall of China, and stood in awe at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem; gone on safari in Africa; seen the Taj Mahal; flown over Africa’s Victoria Falls; floated on the Dead Sea; seen the midnight sun in Norway; and stood at the southernmost points of Africa, India, and mainland Australia. He has liaised with kangaroos, emus, and koalas in Australia; with elephants, hippos, gnus, and lions in Africa; with yaks in Tibet; and with puffins in the Shetland Islands.
Lee is the proud father of Eric, a Professor of Computer Science at George Mason University, and Emily, a Professor at Harvard Medical School who heads a research lab at Boston Childrens Hospital. Each has given him an adored grandchild. Through his second marriage to Lori Clarke, an internationally prominent Computer Scientist, and his soulmate, he also has an additional three step-children and three step-grandchildren. Lee and Lori are both retired now, and live in a lovely house that borders a beautiful Cape Cod salt marsh where they watch egrets, ospreys, and herons from their deck, and watch the tides come and go each day. Their world-travel days are over now, and they are glad that they were able to enjoy them while younger and more vigorous.
Looking back, Lee attributes his success in large part to a lot of hard work and dogged determination. He thinks he made a lot of mistakes, but got a few things right too. He also sees that he benefitted from a lot luck, the four-letter word to which many successful people don’t like to give credit. Having lost his parents while still in school, he was lucky to get some good advice from friends. Lee thinks he was lucky to have met Lori Clarke, the love of his life, lucky to have caught the computer wave very early on, and lucky that his gamble on computers provided a good career path. And Leon Osterweil knows that he was lucky to have gotten a strong start on his education and his career from his years at Weequahic High School.