Donnie Pinkston

Donnie Pinkston is a Teaching Professor and Senior Software Engineer at the Schmidt Academy for Software Engineering (SASE) at California Institute of Technology. His role focuses on advancing software quality in research contexts, combining academic instruction with hands-on software engineering. He teaches core courses such as CS 124 (Operating Systems) and CS 130 (Software Engineering), which have been offered consistently in recent academic years (2020–2023).

Research interests revolve around improving software practices in scientific research, emphasizing robust system design, collaborative development methodologies, and the integration of modern software principles into academic research environments. His work supports interdisciplinary teams across Caltech, aiming to enhance reproducibility and scalability of computational research tools.

As part of SASE, he contributes to initiatives that bridge academic software education with real-world engineering challenges, fostering a culture of disciplined software development among students and researchers.