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Committee Member Biographical Information

GEORGE PAPPAS (NAE), Chair, is the UPS Foundation Professor and the chair of the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds a secondary appointment in the Departments of Computer and Information Sciences and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. He is a member of the GRASP Lab and the PRECISE Center. He has previously served as the deputy dean for research in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. His research focuses on control theory, robotics, formal methods, and machine learning (ML) with cyber-physical applications such as safe autonomy. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the International Federation of Automatic Control and has received various awards such as the Antonio Ruberti Young Researcher Prize, the George S. Axelby Award, the O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award, the National Science Foundation (NSF) PECASE, and the George H. Heilmeier Faculty Excellence Award. Dr. Pappas received his PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.

YIRAN CHEN is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University and serves as the director of the NSF AI Institute for Edge Computing Leveraging the Next-generation Networks (Athena) and the NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center for Alternative Sustainable and Intelligent Computing. His group focuses on the research of efficient and robust artificial intelligence (AI) models, ML and neuromorphic computing, and mobile computing systems. Dr. Chen has published one book and more than 500 technical publications and has been granted 96 U.S. patents. He is now serving as the editor-in-chief of IEEE Circuits and Systems. He received 9 best paper awards, 1 best poster award, and 15 best paper nominations from reputable

international conferences and workshops. He received numerous awards for his technical contributions and professional services such as the IEEE Computer Society Edward J. McCluskey Technical Achievement Award and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGDA Service Award. He is a fellow of the ACM, the IEEE, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and now serves as the chair of ACM SIGDA. Dr. Chen received his PhD in computer and electrical engineering from Purdue University.

WERNER DAMM is the chair for Safety-Critical Embedded Systems at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. He is the director of the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Human-Cyber-Physical Systems. He is a member of acatech, the German National Academy of Science and Engineering. Currently he is engaged as a director in the SafeTRANS working group on ensuring safety for highly automated systems. Dr. Damm is a member of various expert groups of the European Commission and the German National Academy of Sciences, notably on the topics of future strategies for systems-of-systems in Europe, and on cyber-physical systems (CPS) in the transportation domain. His research addresses mathematical models of embedded systems, systems-of-systems, and CPS. This is complemented by applied research with industrial partners in avionics, automotive, space, and medical systems on system-and-safety development processes for safety-related systems. Dr. Damm received his Habilitation degree (Dr.habil.) in 1986 from RWTH Aachen, Germany, in computer science.

THOMAS DIETTERICH is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University. Dr. Dietterich is one of the pioneers of the field of ML and has authored more than 200 refereed publications and two books. His current research topics include robust AI, robust human–AI systems, and applications in sustainability. Dr. Dietterich has been recognized for excellence in both research and service to the community. He received the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) Award for Research Excellence (2024) and the Feigenbaum Prize for Applied AI Research (2025) as well as the Asian Conference on Machine Learning Distinguished Contribution Award (2020) and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Distinguished Service Award (2022). He is a former president of the AAAI and the founding president of the International Machine Learning Society. Other major roles include executive editor of the journal Machine Learning, co-founder of the Journal for Machine Learning Research, and program chair of AAAI 1990 and Neural Information Processing Systems 2000. He currently serves as the chair of the Computer Science Section of arXiv. Dr. Dietterich received his PhD in computer science from Stanford University.

MATTHEW GASTON is the director of the Artificial Intelligence Division at the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute. He also holds an appointment as an adjunct associate professor in the Software and Societal Systems Department in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. As the director of the AI Division, Dr. Gaston leads a diverse team of researchers, engineers, and innovators who assist the Department of Defense in developing and using AI capabilities that are reliable, responsible, safe, fair, and transparent. He is a leader of the community-wide National AI Engineering Initiative focused on establishing and growing the discipline of AI engineering. Dr. Gaston has more than 25 years of experience at the intersection of advanced technology development and national security including serving in the U.S. Air Force, 10 years at the National Security Agency, serving on advisory boards for research at national laboratories, and leading research and development (R&D) activities across the community. He has published in the fields of complex networks, ML, multi-agent systems, and operations research. Dr. Gaston received the AFCEA International Meritorious Service to the Intelligence Community Award, is a graduate of Leadership Pittsburgh, and was a founding trustee of Awesome Pittsburgh. He received his PhD in computer science from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

ANOUCK GIRARD is a professor of robotics and aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her current research interests include vehicle dynamics and control, as well as optimal decision systems, with applications to autonomous vehicles; cooperative control, autonomy, resource allocation, planning, and maneuver coordination; and control of vehicles such as mobile ground, air, space, and ocean robots, flapping-wing vehicles, and foiling America’s Cup class catamarans. Dr. Girard is a recipient of the Silver Shaft Teaching Award from the University of Michigan and a Best Student Paper Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Technical University of Crete in 2022. She co-authored the book Fundamentals of Aerospace Navigation and Guidance (2014). Dr. Girard received her PhD in ocean engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

ROBERT GRIFFIN is the director of IBM’s Corporate Product Safety and Hardware Compliance mission and is an IBM senior technical staff member. He has responsibility for direction and compliance of all business units globally in highly regulated domains related to the safety of products, networks, telecommunication systems, and the electromagnetic environment. Mr. Griffin has worked in the information and communications technologies industry and with his peers in industry and consortia in the United States and Europe for more than 30 years. He is a recognized thought leader for disciplines—including hazard-based safety engineering, positive regulatory practices, technical standards and

the interplay of standards, conformity assessment, and regulation—that frame today’s complex technical regulatory domains. Externally, he serves both IBM and the United States as a member of the U.S. National Committee to the International Electrotechnical Committee (IEC) where he is the U.S. technical advisor for the ICT and consumer electronics industries. Internationally, he chairs IEC TC108 and convenes its largest working group with a mission to develop product safety standards for the information technology, communications, and consumer products industries. Previously, he co-chaired the technical program committee for IEEE’s International Product Compliance Symposiums from 2007 to 2011. Mr. Griffin received his BS in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University.

JONATHAN P. HOW (NAE) is the Ford Professor of Engineering in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research focuses on safe and robust planning and learning under uncertainty, with a particular emphasis on multi-agent systems. He served as the planning and control lead for the MIT team in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. Dr. How’s contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including induction into the University of Toronto Engineering Hall of Distinction (2022), the IEEE Control Systems Society Distinguished Member Award (2020), the AIAA Intelligent Systems Award (2020), and the IEEE Transactions on Robotics King-Sun Fu Memorial Best Paper Award for both 2022 and 2024. He is a Fellow of the IEEE (2018) and the AIAA (2016), and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2021. Dr. How received his BASc in aerospace engineering from the University of Toronto in 1987, and his SM and PhD in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT in 1990 and 1993, respectively.

ASHLEY LLORENS serves as the vice president and management director at Microsoft Research where he leads engagement with the rest of Microsoft and with the broader science and technology community through high-ambition collaborative research initiatives and engagement programs. Prior to joining Microsoft, Mr. Llorens served as the founding chief of the Intelligent Systems Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where he directed R&D AI, robotics, and neuroscience. As a recognized expert in AI and autonomous systems, Mr. Llorens has served on advisory boards and strategic studies for the DoD, the Department of Energy, and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He was a member of the National AI Advisory Committee, which advises the President and White House on matters relating to AI, and of the Defense Science Board. Mr. Llorens received his MS in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

LYDIA TAPIA is the chair of the Computer Science Department at the University of New Mexico. Her research contributions are focused on the development of computationally efficient algorithms for the simulation and analysis of high-dimensional motions. Her primary expertise is in the integration of ML for the planning and control of automated motions and tasks in robotics and computational biology domains. Dr. Tapia is the recipient of the 2016 Denice Denton Emerging Leader Abie Award from the Anita Borg Institute, a 2016 NSF CAREER Award, and the 2017 Computing Research Association Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research Borg Early Career Award. She was a computing innovations postdoctoral fellow at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Tapia received her PhD in computer science from Texas A&M University.

AIDONG ZHANG is the Thomas M. Linville Professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Virginia (UVA). She also holds joint appointments with the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the School of Data Science at UVA. Dr. Zhang served as a program director at NSF from 2015 to 2018. Her research interests include ML, data science, bioinformatics, and health informatics. Dr. Zhang has authored more than 400 refereed publications, including several major conference venues such as the Conference and Workshop on Neural Information Processing Systems, the Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD), the International World Wide Web Conference, IJCAI, and AAAI. She was the editor in-chief of the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics from 2017 to 2021 and was the general co-chair for the ACM SIGKDD KDD 2022. Dr. Zhang is a fellow of the ACM, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the IEEE. She received her PhD in computer science from Purdue University.