Jim Waldo

Jim Waldo
Occupation(s)	Computer scientist, Chief Technology Officer
Years active	1985–present
Known for	Architectural design of Jini, contributions to Java platform, Project Darkstar

Jim Waldo is a prominent American computer scientist currently serving as the Chief Technology Officer at Harvard University. He holds the position of Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice in Computer Science within the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and also serves as a Professor of Technology and Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to his academic tenure, Waldo was a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, where he spearheaded the architectural design of Jini, a Java-based distributed programming framework, and contributed to the development of Project Darkstar. Additionally, he was instrumental in shaping the initial design and implementation of the Java platform.

Biography

Waldo's educational background includes a Bachelor of Science in philosophy earned in 1973, followed by a Master of Arts in linguistics in 1975, and another MA in philosophy in 1976, all from the University of Utah. He completed his doctoral studies with a PhD in philosophy at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1980. After a short academic appointment at Hampshire College, he transitioned into software programming at a startup company. In 1985, Waldo joined Apollo Computer, where he remained through its acquisition by Hewlett-Packard in 1989. During this period, he led efforts to develop the first object request broker and played a significant role in incorporating this technology into the initial CORBA standard. Waldo became part of Sun Microsystems in 1992, later moved to VMWare in 2010, and assumed his role as Harvard's CTO in 2011.

Bibliography

• Jim Waldo, Java: The Good Parts, 2010, O'Reilly Media, ISBN 978-0596803735
• James Waldo, Herbert S. Lin, Lynette I. Millett, Engaging Privacy and Information Technology in a Digital Age, 2007, National Academies Press, ISBN 978-0309103923
• Ken Arnold, Bryan O'Sullivan, Robert W. Scheifler, Jim Waldo, Ann Wollrath, The Jini Specification, 1999, Addison-Wesley Professional, ISBN 978-0201616347
• Jim Waldo, The Evolution of C++: Language Design in the Marketplace of Ideas, 1993, MIT Press, ISBN 9780262731072