Areas of Expertise and Qualifications and Leadership

Patrick McDaniel is the Tsun-Ming Shih Professor of Computer Sciences in the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is a Fellow of IEEE, ACM, and AAAS, a recipient of the SIGOPS Hall of Fame Award and the SIGSAC Outstanding Innovation Award and currently serves as Director of the NSF Frontier Center for Trustworthy Machine Learning. He previously served as Program Manager and Lead Scientist for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s Cyber-Security Collaborative Research Alliance (2013–2018), coordinating one of the nation’s largest multi-institution cybersecurity research programs.

Professor McDaniel’s research broadly spans AI security, computer and network security, and technical public policy, with sustained contributions across systems security, software reliability, and infrastructure resilience. His work has received multiple test-of-time awards from leading research venues including USENIX OSDI (computer systems), ACM PLDI (programming languages), ACM/IEEE ICSE (software engineering), and ACSAC (security), reflecting long-term impact across multiple computing subdisciplines.

Research Interests: Dr. McDaniel’s current research investigates the security and robustness of large-scale digital infrastructure, particularly the interaction of AI and cybersecurity. Key areas of interest include machine-learning security, distributed and cloud system resilience, network measurement and abuse detection, mobile and embedded device security, program analysis for vulnerability discovery, election systems security, and cybersecurity sustainability. Across these domains, his work emphasizes experimental rigor, reproducibility, and the translation of research discoveries into deployable system safeguards.

Advisory Experience and Public Service: Dr. McDaniel is an internationally recognized leader in cybersecurity, privacy, and technology policy, with extensive advisory experience across government, academia, and international research organizations. Exemplars of these roles include:

Chair, IEEE Technical Committee on Security
Member, Privacy Scientific Advisory Board, Helmholtz Center for Information Security (CISPA)
Advisor to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Member, Internetworked Systems Security Network (ISSN)
Member, Technical Guidelines Development Committee, U.S. Election Assistance Commission
Member, President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC)

These roles reflect his long-standing engagement in bridging scientific innovation with public-interest policy, election integrity, telecommunications security, and international research coordination.

National Science and Technology Policy Leadership: Dr. McDaniel has played a direct role in shaping U.S. national research priorities in cybersecurity and AI. Most recently, he served as lead author of the “NSF Secure and Trustworthy Computing 2.0 Vision Statement” (2023), which articulated a national roadmap for federal cybersecurity research investment for the coming decade. He also led development of “Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity: Opportunities and Challenges” (2020) for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council, defining strategic research priorities for securing emerging AI systems. He also led the EVEREST: Evaluation and Validation of Election-Related Equipment, Standards and Testing for the Ohio Secretary of State in 2007.