E-mail: balla.katalin@sqi.hu

Katalin Balla graduated as an informatician in 1984 from “Babeş Bolyai” University of Science Cluj, Romania. She worked as a programmer and a software system engineer until 1990, when she left to Bucharest, becoming a scientific columnist at the Hungarian newspaper “A Hét” and at Radio Bucharest. She attained post-graduate studies in software engineering at Technical University Budapest in 1993, followed by Ph.D. studies between 1994-1997. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2001 at the Technical University of Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in the field of software quality.

Mrs. Balla worked as a quality director at IQSOFT / IQSYS Ltd., for 11 years (1993-2004). She conducted all the process improvement projects at the company (introducing a company-wide project management methodology, followed by development of ISO 9001:1994 and ISO 9001:2000- conform quality management systems, the company’s CMM-based software process improvement project and informal assessment).

Mrs. Balla is a lecturer at Technical University Budapest since 2001, where she developed and teaches a course in software quality management. Beginning with September 2007 she is an associate professor in the Department of Control Engineering and Information Technology.

In March 2004 Katalin was a founding member of SQI-Hungarian Software Quality Consulting Institute Ltd. (member of the ESI@net, the European Software Institute’s commercial network), where she has the job of managing director. She continues working as a consultant in software process improvement. She is a qualified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, ISO 9001:2000, Bootstrap and SPICE auditor.

She participated in many international research projects. She has a large number of scientific publications, and a presence in Hungarian and international conferences.