His background is in computer systems performance and he has contributed to the performance of many of IBM's operating system and middleware technology products. For several years he led the performance work for the development of IBM's Java Virtual Machine implementations.
Robert received a PhD in Computer Sciences from the University of Texas in Austin in 1983. He joined IBM in 1987 at the TJ Watson Research Centre in New York. In 1999 he was elected to IBM's Academy of Technology, and in 2003 to the Technology Council (leadership) for the Academy. He has published approximately 30 papers in the performance area, and holds over 37 patents for IBM.
As CTO for Messaging Technology he provides technical leadership for IBM's messaging products WebSphere MQ and Message Broker, and the infrastructure for IBM's Enterprise Services Bus.