Don Roberts

Associate Professor of Computer Science

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Biography

Dr. Roberts spends his time researching program transformations such as refactoring and migrating code from one programming language to another and has developed tools to support these kinds of activities which he has used when consulting with various software development clients. Additionally, he has spent recent years focusing on mobile software development for both the iOS and Android platforms.

Education

  • Ph.D. Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1999
  • M.S. Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1992
  • B.S. Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1990

Experience

  • 2002-present: Associate Professor
  • 2015-2018: Independent Consultant – PSI, Inc.
  • 2008-2009: Independent Consultant – Profitstar, Inc.
  • 2006-2007: Independent Consultant – Synchrony Systems, Inc.
  • 2003-2006: Independent Consultant – Profitstar, Inc.

Specialty Areas

  • Refactoring
  • Object-Oriented Design
  • Agile Software Development
  • Programming Language migration

Peer Reviewed Journal Publications

  • John Brant, Don Roberts, Bill Plendl, and Jeff Prince. Extreme maintenance: Transforming Delphi to C#. In 2010 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, Timişoara, Romania, September 2010
  • James Giles, Anthony Richardson, Donald Roberts, and David Mitchel. Using robotics competitions to teach teamwork principles and fundamental engineering & computer science concepts. In Proceedings of the 2005 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, 2005
  • Don Roberts and John Brant. Tools for making impossible changes. IEE Proceedings – Software, 151(2), April 2004

Other Publications

  • E. Murphy-Hill, D. Roberts, P. Sommerlad, and W. F. Opdyke. Refactoring [guest editors’ introduction]. IEEE Software, 32(6):27–29, Nov 2015
  • John Brant and Don Roberts. Two decades of refactoring tools. In Danny Dig, William G. Griswold, Emerson Murphy-Hill, and Max Schäfer, editors, The Future of Refactoring (Dagstuhl Seminar 14211), volume 4, pages 40–67. Schloss Dagstuhl–Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik, 2014
  • Don Roberts and John Brant. Refactoring to Patterns, chapter Afterword. Pearson Education, 2005
  • Don Roberts and John Brant. Refactoring, chapter 14 - Refactoring Tools. Addison-Wesley, 1999

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