James E. Rumbaugh

Co-developer of the Object Modeling Technique (OMT) and the Unified Modeling Language (UML), Rumbaugh is an American computer scientist and object-oriented methodologist who created these with Grady Booch and Ivar Jacobson. Born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, he received a B.S. degree in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an M.S. degree in Astronomy from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT under Professor Jack Dennis.

During his Ph.D. research under Professor Jack Dennis, he contributed to the development of data flow computer architecture. His thesis described a parallel programming language, a parallel processor computer, and a basis for a network architecture that orients itself at data flow. Rumbaugh went on to make further contributions to Object Modeling Technique, IDEF4, the Rational Unified Process, and the Unified Modeling Language.

He began his career in the 1960s at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) as a lead research scientist. His main research interests were formal description languages, "semantics of computation, tools for programming productivity, and applications using complex algorithms and data structures." He joined the General Electric Research and Development Center in Schenectady, New York in 1968, where he worked on developing technology, teaching, and consulting.

At General Electric, Rumbaugh served as Manager of the Software Engineering Program, leading a team of Ph.D. and M.S. scientists performing research in software engineering in the areas of algorithm development, programming languages, and program proving. He worked on a variety of projects, including the design of one of the first time-sharing operating systems, early work in interactive graphics, algorithms for computed tomography, use of parallel machines for fast image generation, and VLSI chip design. He also led the development of the Object-modeling technique (OMT), an object modeling language for software modeling and designing, and led a five-year programming effort producing production-quality software.

In 1994, he joined Rational Software, where he worked with Ivar Jacobson and Grady Booch. They became known as "the Three Amigos" and developed the Unified Modeling Language (UML). Later, Rumbaugh and his colleagues merged their software development methodologies — OMT, OOSE, and Booch — into the Rational Unified Process (RUP). In 2003 he moved to IBM following its acquisition of Rational Software, and retired in 2006.

He wrote a number of books about UML and RUP together with Ivar Jacobson and Grady Booch, including: 1975, "A Parallel Asynchronous Computer Architecture For Data Flow Programs," MIT thesis; 1991, "Object-Oriented Modeling and Design" with others, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-629841-9; 1996, "OMT insights: perspectives on modeling from the Journal of Object-Oriented Programming," Foreword by James Coplien; 1999, "Unified software development process"; and 2005, "Object-oriented modeling and design with UML." Rumbaugh also published journal articles on his work, spoke and taught at leading object-oriented conferences, and wrote a regular column for the Journal of Object-Oriented Programming.