Former DARPA I2O director joins Galois as Chief Scientist

We are excited to announce that Dr. John Launchbury is joining Galois as Chief Scientist. Dr. Launchbury was formerly the Director of the Information Innovation Office (I2O) at DARPA, where he led nation-scale investments in the future of cyber-security and artificial intelligence. Dr. Launchbury plans to pursue his vision of creating provably safe and secure critical systems.

“I’m thrilled to be rejoining an organization that understands the critical need for trustworthy systems, and has the ability to develop technologies that enable such systems to be built,” said Dr. Launchbury. “The cyber threat is real, and there is emerging industrial and political will to build secure systems on a national level. Now is the time to act.”

Dr. Launchbury will focus on drawing together government and industry leaders to craft a cohesive direction for addressing the security issues that exist in critical systems today, not just by checking the systems for malicious behavior, but by fundamentally improving the security of existing cyber-physical systems. He will also lead Galois’ involvement with industry partners looking to leverage applied formal mathematical techniques to guarantee that their software is safe, reliable, and secure.

“John is a recognized leader in high assurance systems and a force of nature in making formal methods accessible,” said Dr. Rob Wiltbank, Galois CEO. “His work has significant implications from a national security and critical infrastructure perspective; we’re very proud to have him on the team.”

Dr. Launchbury was the original founder of Galois in 1999. Prior to that, he was a professor in computer science and engineering at the Oregon Graduate Institute (OGI) School of Science and Engineering (now OHSU).

For more information, visit Wikipedia or Dr. Launchbury’s Galois profile page.