Long time UUASC member Mike Elliott recently completed work as an expert witness, testifying in a civil case before the U. S. District Court, Northern District of New York. This case, in which he was involved for three-and-a-half years, resulted in a $26 million judgment in favor of his client. In this presentation, Mike will discuss aspects of being an expert witness with a focus on computer related issues. He will discuss what an expert witness is, the sort of work an expert witness is expected to do, and observations on various aspects of expert opinion and testimony. Additionally, he will discuss other important aspects such as how to obtain such work and, once obtained, how to actually get paid for it.

Mike is a long time practitioner of object-oriented programming, having started with C++ but quickly moving on to Modula-3, Eiffel, Python, and especially Java. He has been involved with real-time Java for the last few years, investigating the Aicas, Aonix, IBM, and Sun Microsystems real-time Java products.

Additionally, he is a member of and active participant in Subgroup 5, Object-Oriented Technology, of SC-205/WG-71 of the RTCA/EUROCAE, which is currently revising DO-178B/ED-12B, Software Considerations for Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification. This subgroup is responsible for providing guidance and guidelines by which software developers can create airborne systems using object-oriented techniques, techniques which may well involve real-time garbage collection issues.

Involved in both management and engineering, Mike has held positions in industry ranging from embedded systems programmer to principal engineer to manager of operations software. Additionally, he has taught extensively at the college and university level. Mike has been a speaker at several conferences and symposia including TOOLS Europe, The JDJ Edge Conference, the Embedded Systems Conference, and the Boeing Technical Excellence Conference.