Dr. Jim Waldo

Biography

Jim Waldo is a Professor of Practice at Harvard Kennedy School and the Gordon McKay Professor of Practice in Computer Science at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He has a robust background in designing cloud systems, having worked as a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories. His work primarily focuses on next-generation large-scale distributed systems. Waldo began his career in distributed systems at Apollo Computer where he contributed to distributed object systems and user interfaces. At Sun, he was the technical lead on Project Darkstar, a multi-threaded, distributed infrastructure designed for massive multi-player online games and virtual worlds. He also played a pivotal role as the lead architect for Jini, a distributed programming system based on Java, and was an early member of the Java software organization. Waldo has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and holds M.A. degrees in Linguistics and Philosophy from the University of Utah. He is a member of the IEEE and ACM, with research interests in the intersection of science, technology, and public policy, especially in relation to human rights and cybersecurity.

Research Interests