Dr. Dale Walter Karolak is currently an Engineering Director at TRW Automotive Electronics. His previous positions include Software and System Engineering Manager at ITT Aerospace/Communications, and Software Engineer at GTE Communications Systems R&D Labs. He received his Ph.D. in Software Engineering from The Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, his M.B.A. from the University of Phoenix, and his B.S. in Computer Science from Central Michigan University.

Dr. Karolak is the author of the IEEE's best selling book, "Software Engineering Risk Management," He has presented and published over 10 papers in the areas of Software Management, metrics, reliability, quality, testing, and architecture at IEEE, ACM, NSIA, Association of Management, Applied Software Measurement, International Software Engineering Research Forum, and Medical Device conferences and journals. He also holds a patent on "Communication Management System Architecture," and has three other software architecture and communication patents pending. He is a member of the IEEE, ACM and SAE societies.