Debra J. Richardson is Professor of Informatics and founding dean of the University of California–Irvine's Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS).  She has been on the UCIrvine faculty since 1987.  Under her leadership as chair, the ICS department was promoted to the first and only computing-focused school in the University of California system in December 2002, after which she was named the Ted and Janice Smith Dean of the new school.  Dean Richardson set aggressive goals for herself and the school, with top priorities of building an infrastructure to support a dynamic research and educational environment that meets the demands of regional industry and community and contributes to the global economy, as well as ensuring that ICS is a top-tier, broad and interdisciplinary program attracting the best and brightest students and faculty.  Richardson was instrumental in securing a transformational $20 million endowment for the school, resulting in naming the school after philanthropist Donald Bren.  She served as dean through June 2010.

Dr. Richardson has always been committed to increasing the participation of women and other underrepresented minorities in information and computing technologies. She has served on the leadership team of the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) since its inception; NCWIT’s overarching goal is parity in the professional IT workforce through education, dissemination, advocacy, and a national, multi-year implementation plan that generates tangible progress within 20 years. She leads the NCWIT hub at UCIrvine, a NCWIT PaceSetter focused on developing and evaluating best practices to increase the participation of women at the undergraduate level, and also throughout the academic pipeline.

Dr. Richardson has recently engaged with passion to improve K-12 computer science education.  Since 2005, she has chaired ACM’s Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) Advisory Council; CSTA provides opportunities for K-12 teachers and students to better understand the computing disciplines and to more successfully prepare themselves to teach and learn.  For the last two years, she has served as chair of Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek), a week endorsed by Congress in 2009 to recognize the transformative role of computing in society and the critical need to bolster computer science education at all levels. CSEdWeek is a collaborative activity of Computing in the Core, a non-partisan advocacy coalition of associations, corporations, scientific societies, and other non-profits, striving to elevate computer science to a core academic subject in K-12 education.  Dr. Richardson also chairs the California Computing Education Advocacy Network (CCEAN), a significant advocacy movement focused on reforming California education policies so that all California students have access to high-quality K-12 computer science education, especially those who have typically been disadvantaged and underrepresented in the field.

A leader in software engineering research, Richardson pioneered research in "specification-based testing", whereby formal specifications are employed to guide software testing, and has focused on enabling specification-based testing technology throughout the software lifecycle, from requirements and architecture analysis through operation and evolution.  She has recently expanded her research to adapting software engineering methods to socially relevant domains – in particular, the domain of ICTD (Information and Communication Technologies for Development), with a specific interest in developing new requirements engineering approaches for work with computationally-marginalized peoples, such as those in developing countries, and the domain of environmental sustainability, with a focus on treating sustainability as a first class quality attribute in requirements engineering.  Dr. Richardson has authored over 140 refereed book chapters, journal articles, and conference papers.

Dr. Richardson’s research was recognized by designation as a Fellow of Automated Software Engineering for significant and sustained contributions to the ASE Community through scientific accomplishments and service.  She has chaired many of the key research conferences in software engineering.  Dr. Richardson currently chairs the Computing Research Association (CRA) Deans Group, which was established to provide leadership and community to emerging and established schools and colleges of computing and interdisciplinary "IT" academic organizations.

Debra Richardson received her B.A. in Mathematics from the University of California–San Diego in 1976, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst in 1978 and 1981, respectively.  She did her graduate work with Professor Lori A. Clarke. After finishing her Ph.D., she stayed on at UMass–Amherst for six years before joining UCIrvine; she was a visiting assistant professor but was also starting lock (second row) for Beantown, the premier women’s rugby club in New England!