David Wagner

David Wagner is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley's College of Engineering. He holds the Carl J. Penther Chair in Engineering and leads the Wagner Research Group, which focuses on computer security, AI security, and systems security.

• Education
  • Ph.D., Computer Science, UC Berkeley (2000)
  • M.S., Computer Science, UC Berkeley (1999)
  • A.B., Mathematics, Princeton University (1995)

Research Interests
Wagner's work spans computer security, with a particular focus on security for AI systems (especially large language models) and security for wearable/smartphone devices. He has extensive experience in wireless security, sensor network security, applied cryptography, and software security, including electronic voting systems and program analysis for security.

His research group develops tools like OpenCount for election auditing, AuditBear for voting machine analysis, and PrimeVul for vulnerability detection in code.

Scientific Awards

• ACM SIGSAC Test of Time Award (2022)
• IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy Test of Time Award (2020)
• USENIX Test of Time Award (2019)
• Google Faculty Research Award (2018)
• Internet Defense Prize (2017)
• ACM SIGSAC Outstanding Innovation Award (2016)
• IBM Pat Goldberg Memorial Best Paper Award (2008)
• UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award (2006)
• Sloan Research Fellow (2003)
• NSF CAREER Award (2001)

Advising & Grants
Wagner has advised numerous graduate students including Sizhe Chen, Zhanhao Hu, and Dennis Jacob. His research has been supported by grants from NSF (CAREER, ITR), Microsoft, Intel, and the Okawa Foundation.

Labs & Teams
He co-directs the Berkeley Security Research Group, participates in the ACTION Institute, and leads the KACST-UCB Joint Center on Cybersecurity. His team develops open-source security tools and datasets like DiverseVul for vulnerability detection.