Draft:William Moloney

Early life and education

William Moloney

From an early age, Bill has held an interest in STEM subjects and took related courses in high school along with attending summer classes at MIT. As he was applying to colleges, he wanted to go to a school that offered opportunities in engineering and science. After applying to many schools, Bill got admitted to Lowell Technological Institute where he graduated with a degree in engineering in 1968. During his undergraduate years, he also played ice hockey and worked as an assistant coach from 1970-1977. He eventually got involved in plastics engineering and took many chemistry courses at the university. In 1973 he completed a master's degree in plastics.

Career

Past

After graduating with his bachelor's in engineering, Bill worked as an engineer for Raytheon, a defense contractor company that specializes in weapons and military and commercial electronics. From 1970-1974, he worked as a resident advisor in the dormitory at Bourgeois Hall. Also during that time, he taught courses in the math department as a TA which piqued his interest in mathematics, specifically statistics. In 1974, while doing graduate work in statistics at Boston College, he got hired by the mathematics department at the University of Lowell (UMass Lowell was not created yet) as a faculty member. Although Bill was part of the mathematics faculty, most of the courses he taught were related to computer science and after the founding of the department, all of his classes were related to computer science. Bill taught the first artificial intelligence, operating systems, assembly language,LISP, and Prolog courses at the university. He was also part of the continuing education program so he would spend as much time teaching at the university as he would spend training people from companies like Digital Equipment Corp., Wang Laboratories, and Data General. This allowed him to work with engineers and learn a lot about the industry.

Current

Today William Moloney is the Associate Professor & MSIT Coordinator at UMass Lowell. He is also a UMass Lowell Computer Science Board member. In 2020, Moloney taught an IoT class with RedHat employees Jeff Bown and Daniel Pivonka who volunteered as IoT expert leaders and his students presented their semester projects to professors and industry professionals.

Research

William Moloney has three publications:

• Concurrent reading and writing with replicated data objects (Conference paper)(January, 1988)
• DFIFO protocol and analysis (Conference Paper)(January, 1992)
• Reading types in C using the right left walk method (Article)(December, 2004)

The topics covered include concurrency, parallel computing models, object type, verbalizing a declarator, C declarators, and verbalizing C types.

History of the Computer Science Department at UMass Lowell

Founding of the Computer Science Department

Key faculty involved:

• William Moloney(member of the Mathematics faculty)
• Thomas Costello(member of the Mathematics faculty)
• David Korff(past member of the Physics faculty)
• Shim Berkowitz(past member of the Mathematics faculty)
• Win Fuller(past member of the Business faculty)

At the time, UMass Lowell was known as the University of Lowell and had primitive technology with limited people to teach it. Languages like COBOL and PASCAL were initially taught out of the math department. Bill taught many of the initial courses like assembly line and the first attempts at operating systems. But with growing companies such as Wang Laboratories close by, Digital Equipment Corp., Data General, and Prime, it became evident to Bill and other professors that a separate department was needed at the University of Lowell. Together, William Moloney, Thomas Costello, David Korff, Shim Berkowitz, and Win Fuller all set out to establish the department of Computer Science. Thomas Costello held a major role in engineering the process of founding the department. A committee was formed with some external members and a proposal was eventually created. The proposal got approved and by 1978 the Computer Science department at the University of Lowell was up and running.

Post foundation of Computer Science Department

The first freshman class of the computer science department had 30-35 students who graduated in 1982. Some graduated in 1981 as they were transfer students who came in during their sophomore year. The department began its journey with limited resources, primarily relying on university computers such as the Control Data CDC 3000 series machines. Faculty members utilized these machines in a rudimentary programming environment that involved card punches, a process that was both tedious and time-consuming. As the department evolved, Thomas Costello, who became the department chair after Shim Berkovitz, played a pivotal role in acquiring new technology. Through connections with Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), the department obtained its first computers, marking a significant shift in its technological capabilities.

Around 1978-1979, the department received terminals and a VAX computer system, enabling faculty to conduct courses in programming languages such as C and Pascal. The introduction of these computers, along with subsequent advances, laid the foundation for modern computer science education as seen today at UMass Lowell. Courses in artificial intelligence (AI), operating systems, and assembly language were introduced, positioning the department as a leader in innovative computer science curricula.