Peter A. Freeman was the Founding Dean of the College of Computing in 1990 and served as the John P. Imlay Dean of Computing until 2002.  He is now Emeritus Dean and Professor and continues to work with Georgia Tech on specific projects.  He is also a member of the Advisory Group at Huron in Washington, DC. From 2002 to 2007, he was Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), heading the Computer & Information Science & Engineering Directorate. 

Under his leadership, the College of Computing became one of the strongest and largest computing research and education groups in the country. As an Assistant Director of NSF he was part of the senior management team that helped formulate national science policy and that operated the NSF. As AD/CISE, he oversaw a staff of approximately 100 and a funding budget of over $500M/year. CISE is responsible for over 85% of the Federal funding for fundamental computer science research in academia. As the senior computing research official in the U.S. Government, he led the inter-agency NITRD Subcommittee that coordinates all Federal Networking and IT R&D. At NSF, he was also responsible for insuring that the U.S. computing research community was well connected internationally.

During his time as AD/CISE, Dr. Freeman was responsible for a number of activities that have had a major impact on computing, including: leading the Information Technology Research Program, leading the elevation of cyberinfrastructure to a major activity across NSF, initiating the GENI Internet Research project, coordinating homeland security research across NSF, and starting several key CISE programs including Broadening Participation in Computing, Science of Design, and the Computing Community Consortium. As a division director at NSF in the 1980’s he was part of a small team that drafted the Government’s influential High-Performance Computing Initiative.

Dr. Freeman is widely recognized for his technical and educational activities in software systems and software engineering, and computer science and information technology more generally. In addition to his academic and research activities, he is an experienced university and government executive and manager, and a seasoned lecturer and consultant to corporations, governments, and universities in more than a dozen countries.

He co-authored The Supply of Information Technology Workers in the United States and authored Software Perspectives: The System is the Message, Software Systems Principles, and numerous technical papers. In addition, he edited or co-edited four books including, Software Reusability and Software Design Techniques.

Dr. Freeman received his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie-Mellon University, his M.A. in mathematics and psychology from University of Texas at Austin, and his B.A. in physics and mathematics from Rice University. He is a resident of Washington, DC.

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