Mandy Chessell

Amanda Chessell
Born	Amanda Elizabeth Chessell Bath, Somerset, United Kingdom
Other names	Mandy Chessell
Occupation(s)	Computer scientist, Distinguished Engineer at IBM
Years active	1987–present
Known for	IBM Master Inventor, first woman to receive the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering
Notable work	Numerous publications on AI, data lakes, metadata management, and model-driven development

Amanda Elizabeth Chessell is a distinguished computer scientist and holds the position of Distinguished Engineer at IBM. She has earned the designation of IBM Master Inventor and is a recognized Member of the IBM Academy of Technology.

As the first woman to receive the Silver Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineering, Chessell was also inducted as a Fellow in 2002.

She holds visiting professorships at both the University of Sheffield and the Surrey Centre for the Digital Economy (CoDE) at the University of Surrey.

Career at IBM

Mandy Chessell began her tenure with IBM in 1987 and operates out of IBM's Hursley laboratory located near Winchester, UK. Her initial contributions centered on distributed transaction processing, improving products such as CICS, Encina, Component Broker, and WebSphere Application Server. Additionally, she played a role in advancing event management, business process modeling, and outside-in design (OID).

Subsequently, she pioneered model-driven tools aimed at streamlining the analysis and design of complex systems. These tools facilitated automation across development tasks including user interface creation, service development, and information integration within Master Data Management frameworks.

Her current focus lies in areas like data lake architectures, metadata management, and information governance. She chairs the ODPi Technical Steering Committee (TSC) and leads the ODPi Egeria Project.

Chessell is a frequent speaker on innovation within Computer Science at institutions such as Queen Mary University of London. She was featured among 30 women in the 2014 BCS Women in IT Campaign and appeared in the e-publication "Women in IT: Inspiring the next generation."

Achievements

In 2000, Chessell was recognized as part of the inaugural group of MIT Technology Review magazine’s TR100. The following year, she received the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Silver Medal for her invention of reusable software component architecture and was elected as a Fellow of the Academy in 2002.

She was nominated by the British Computer Society for the Women's Engineering Society "Karen Burt" award in 2004. In 2006, she earned accolades as Female Inventor of the Year for building innovation capacity and was honored as Best Woman in the Corporate Sector at the Blackberry Women in Technology awards.

In 2011, Chessell was granted honorary fellowship by the Institution of Engineering Designers (IED). The Cisco everywoman in Technology Awards named her Innovator of the Year in 2012.

She holds honorary doctorates from Plymouth University (2013), University of Brighton (2015), University of South Wales (2016), and University of Bath (2017).

In recognition of her contributions to engineering, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2015. The following year, she was listed among the Top 50 Influential Women in Engineering.

Education

Chessell pursued Computer Science early on, achieving both an O-Level and an A-Level in this discipline. She studied at Plymouth Polytechnic until 1987, earning a Bachelor's Honours Degree in Computing with Informatics.

Joining IBM at Hursley Park, Winchester in 1987, she completed a master's degree in software engineering at the University of Brighton in 1997, supported by IBM sponsorship.

Publications

• 2020: Study by CDEI and BCS on the ethical maturity of AI practices authored by Mandy Chessell
• 2019: AI: Complex, Not Magical written by Mandy Chessell
• 2018: From Data Lake to Data-Driven Enterprise: The Ongoing Journey by Mandy Chessell and collaborators
• 2017: Advocating for Open Metadata by Mandy Chessell
• 2016: InsightOut: Advocating Open Metadata and Governance by Mandy Chessell
• 2016: InsightOut: Apache Atlas’s Role in the Open Metadata Ecosystem by Mandy Chessell
• 2015: Constructing a Data Reservoir to Confidently Leverage Big Data by Mandy Chessell
• 2015: Common Information Models for an Agile, Open, and Analytical Environment co-authored by Mandy Chessell and others
• 2015: Designing and Managing a Data Reservoir by Mandy Chessell and colleagues
• 2014: Managing and Governing Big Data for Analytics and Decision Makers authored by Mandy Chessell et al.
• 2014: Ethical Considerations for Big Data and Analytics by Mandy Chessell
• 2013: Information Design Patterns in a Service-Oriented Architecture co-written by Mandy Chessell and Harald C Smith
• 2013: Information Management Patterns authored by Mandy Chessell and Harald C Smith
• 2013: Smarter Analytics: Architecting Information for the New Computing Era by Mandy Chessell
• 2013: Smarter Analytics: Advancing to IBM Cognitive Systems Redguide co-authored by Mandy Chessell et al.
• 2012: Driving Customer Engagement with IBM Next Best Action Solution by Mandy Chessell and David Pugh
• 2008: Modeling Demystified Part 1: Creating System Specifications from the User Perspective co-written by Mandy Chessell and Larry Yusuf
• 2008: Modeling Demystified Part 2: Developing a User Model by Mandy Chessell and Larry Yusuf
• 2008: Modeling Demystified Part 3: Extending UML for User Models authored by Mandy Chessell and Larry Yusuf
• 2006: SOA User Roles Explained co-authored by Mandy Chessell and Birgit Schmidt-Wesche
• 2005: Patterns in Model-Driven Development Using IBM Rational Software Architect by Peter Swithinbank, Mandy Chessell, and others
• 2005: Implementing Model-Driven Development to Enhance IT System Business Value co-written by Mandy Chessell, Larry Yusuf, and Tracy Gardner
• 2000: Transactional Business Process Servers: Definitions and Requirements authored by Thomas Mikalsen et al. alongside Mandy Chessell et al.

Lectures

• Addressing Social and Ethical Challenges in Data Linkage presented by Mandy Chessell, July 2015
• Computing History through IBM's Perspective delivered by Mandy Chessell, November 2011
• Smarter City Information Systems by Mandy Chessell, May 2011
• Fostering Innovative Organizations presented by Mandy Chessell, February 2010
• WES Lecture on Model-Driven Development by Mandy Chessell, June 2008
• Study on Innovation Ecosystems by IBM Academy of Technology delivered by Mandy Chessell, May 2008
• Designing IT Systems with User Focus by Mandy Chessell, November 2006
• Company Case Study 2 – Product Innovation presented by Mandy Chessell, October 2004