Ira D. Baxter is a research scientist with the Schlumberger Laboratory for Computer Science in Austin, Texas, working on tools to help engineers generate scientific modeling programs for parallel computers. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California at Irvine in 1990. A previous life included 20 years of system software design for mini- and micro-computers. His interests include program synthesis/transformation, software engineering, and pizza.