Douglas Schmidt is the inaugural dean of William & Mary's School of Computing, Data Sciences & Physics. Previously, he served as director of operational test and evaluation, a President-appointed, Senate-confirmed position helping the Secretary of Defense test and evaluate weapon and information systems.

Schmidt is a highly cited author with more than 50,000 citations, has published over 700 papers, co-authored 10+ books, and developed widely-used open-source middleware, model-driven engineering tools, and mobile cloud computing apps. Schmidt has served on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board and the Advisory Board for the joint Navy/Army Future Airborne Capability Environment initiative. He has also worked for several private companies, including Prism Technologies and Zircon Computing.