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A Message from the CTO

Forging the Path

In the past decade, a number of emerging disruptions have forced those of us concerned with software engineering to adopt new approaches for bringing engineering rigor to software and systems development. These disruptions are of particular concern to the Department of Defense (DoD), which now depends on software to deliver the majority of new capabilities necessary to maintain strategic advantage.

As the only federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) focused on software, we share this concern. This is why, in 2019, we adopted a new technical strategy: Software Transforming the Mission. In executing this strategy, we’re forging a path along which software engineering can help create stability in a world of software disruption, and software architects can design whole, stable systems that present fewer opportunities for adversaries. In other words, our goal is to help the DoD to realize advantage through software.

To achieve this goal, we established four targeted, cross-cutting objectives:

  • Automate the software development and DoD acquisition lifecycle.
  • Create operational resilience for missions.
  • Realize artificial intelligence (AI) and future computing.
  • Integrate the preceding objectives into mission-capable systems.

At the 2022 Research Review, our researchers will detail how they are forging a new path for software engineering by executing this strategy and creating tangible results. They will highlight methods, prototypes, and tools aimed at the most important problems facing the DoD, industry, and academia, including AI engineering, computing at the tactical edge, threat hunting, continuous integration/continuous delivery, and machine learning trustworthiness. You will learn how our researchers’ work in areas such as model-based systems engineering, DevSecOps, automated design conformance, software/cyber/AI integration, and AI network defense—to name a few—has produced value for the U.S. DoD and advanced the state of the practice.

Each session will present tools, techniques, and processes arising from our integrated technical objectives, which are designed to transform the mission through software and address four big software challenges for national defense and security: capability, timeliness, affordability, and trustworthiness. You will also hear about the positive impact of those technologies on the DoD’s mission.

This book highlights selected projects from our portfolio of DoD-sponsored public research for fiscal 2022 presented at the 2022 CMU SEI Research Review. These projects include recently concluded work and work that continues in our research pipeline to study, make, and transition results to the benefit of DoD, the USG, academia, and the private sector.

I hope you enjoy reading about CMU SEI’s fiscal 2021 research efforts and that the following pages demonstrate the pride we take in this work. I invite you to read more about the SEI’s technical strategy in my SEI Blog post, The Drive Toward Stability. I also invite you to view videos of the 2022 Research Review, which you can find at the SEI YouTube channel.

We stand by to work with you to help you make a difference, and we encourage you to contact us at info@sei.cmu.edu.

TOM LONGSTAFF
Chief Technology Officer, Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute