Dr. Eric Wong, UT Dallas CS professor, Director of the UT Dallas Computer Science International Outreach, and Director of the UT Dallas Advanced Research Center for Software Testing and Quality Assurance (STQA), has been appointed as Editor-in-Chief of Transactions on Reliability (TRel aka TR), published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), effective April 2016. Currently, the editorial board has more than 30 members from academia, industry, and government agencies. The number of submissions in 2016 is expected to be around 600, with an acceptance rate of less than 20%.

TRel was first launched in 1955 as IRE Transactions on Reliability and Quality Control; the journal was renamed to its current title in 1962. TRel is the flagship journal of the IEEE Reliability Society and is considered one of the most prestigious journals in the area of reliability. 

The journal covers not only various aspects of reliability (software and hardware), but also allied disciplines, including testing, prognostics, maintainability, warranty, safety, security, privacy, design and manufacture for reliability, and various measures of effectiveness. The journal also supports emerging new technologies and is continuously expanding into new areas of research, including the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and big data. 

Dr. Wong’s academic accomplishments, long history with the IEEE Reliability Society, scholarly reputation, journal editorial experience, and leadership record, played a major part in the selection process for the position of Editor-in-Chief of TRel. The process of selecting the next Editor-in-Chief involved the Reliability Society’s Executive Committee reviewing the two final candidates recommended by the TRel Editorial Search Committee and subsequently providing comments to the society’s Administrative Committee for voting. Based on the results of the voting, the society’s president appointed Dr. Wong as the next Editor-in-Chief of TRel.

Each term is three years, with the opportunity to serve two terms back to back. As the role of Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Wong’s responsibilities will include:

• Recruiting, mentoring, and managing the board of associate editors and guest editors
• Setting the editorial direction for the journal
• Making final publication decisions for manuscripts
• Planning and finalizing each issue of the journal for production
• Communicating with authors and answering journal-related questions
• Working with IEEE production staff
• Representing the publication to the Reliability Society at appropriate events

When asked about the importance of TRel and its impact on Computer Science, Dr. Wong explains, “Our everyday lives increasingly rely on the services provided by many systems consisting of computer software and hardware. The aftermath of operational failures of these systems can have catastrophic consequences, including property damage, financial loss, serious injury, or even death. Preventing such disasters from occurring is of paramount importance.” Dr. Wong continues, “While the complexity and functionality of these systems grow at a rapid rate, both the time and budget spent ensuring that they are high-quality is continuously reducing. As a result, innovative and cost-effective technologies must be developed to combat these issues. TRel provides an important platform for publication of thought-provoking manuscripts that promote sound techniques to ensure the safe, correct, and secure operation of computer systems with an emphasis on both current and emerging practices.”

Dr. Wong is currently a member of the TRel editorial board and a guest editor for the special section of TRel on Software Quality Assurance: Research and Practice. The special section received more than 90 submissions, setting a record for TRel. Eight accepted papers appeared in the March 2016 issue of TRel and a few more will be published in the September issue. With the recent growth of software applications in the Internet of Things and Big Data, the IEEE Reliability Society believes that there is a need for another special section led by Dr. Wong focusing on this important area. 

Dr. Wong has served the IEEE Reliability Society as a member of the Administrative Committee since 2008 and the Executive Committee since 2012. He has also served as Vice President for Technical Activities (2012-2013), Secretary (2013), and Vice President of Publications (2015). Since 2014, Dr. Wong has been in charge of the RS Tutorial Certificate Program on System and Software Reliability, which is sponsored by the IEEE Future Direction Committee and organized by the Reliability Society. 

Dr. Wong’s research focuses on helping practitioners improve the quality of software while reducing the cost of development at the same time. In particular, he is working on software testing, debugging, risk analysis/metrics, safety, and reliability. He has experience developing real-life industry applications of his research results. He has published more than 180 papers and has co-edited two books. 

In January 2015, Dr. Eric Wong received the 2014 Engineer of the Year Award from the IEEE Reliability Society. This award recognized his key contributions in software testing and quality assurance that occurred within the last few years. The award is also a testimony to Dr. Wong’s technical achievements, involvement in IEEE, and reliability-related professional activities. 

Dr. Wong received his master’s and doctorate degrees in Computer Science from Purdue University. In addition to his position at UT Dallas, he also has an appointment as a Guest Researcher from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, located in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

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About the UT Dallas Computer Science Department

The UT Dallas Computer Science program is one of the largest Computer Science departments in the United States with over 1,600 bachelor’s-degree students, more than 1,100 master’s students, 160 PhD students, and 80 faculty members, as of Fall 2015. With The University of Texas at Dallas’ unique history of starting as a graduate institution first, the CS Department is built on a legacy of valuing innovative research and providing advanced training for software engineers and computer scientists.