David Garlan

David Garlan is a Professor at the Software and Societal Systems Department within the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also serves as Associate Dean for Master’s Programs. He received his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon in 1987 after working in industry as a software architect. His research focuses on controlling complexity in large software systems through formalized architectural design, self-adaptive systems, and cyber-physical systems. He developed AcmeStudio, a widely used architecture design environment, and pioneered formal representation and analysis of software architecture.

• Education: Ph.D. in Computer Science (Carnegie Mellon, 1987)

Research Interests include:

• Software Architecture: Formal methods for architectural design, end-user composition, and architectural styles
• Self-Adaptive Systems: Stochastic planning, model checking, security adaptation, and uncertainty reduction
• Cyber-Physical Systems: Multi-view design methods, consistency checking, and automotive systems

Recent Article Trends address microservice resiliency, hybrid planning (combining formal methods and ML), simulation-augmented robotics, and sustainable machine translation. Themes include stochastic modeling, probabilistic verification, and adaptive decision-making.

Scientific Awards:

• Stevens Award Citation (2005)
• ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award (2011)
• Allen Newell Award for Research Excellence (2016)
• IEEE TCSE Distinguished Education Award (2017)
• Nancy Mead Award (2017)
• Fellow of IEEE and ACM

Advising and Grants: He has advised 25+ graduate students and collaborated on projects with Toyota and the Software Engineering Institute. His work includes model-based adaptation, automated planning, and formal verification of adaptive systems.

Labs & Teams: Affiliated with the Institute for Software Research and works on tools like AcmeStudio, Rainbow, and IPL for architectural modeling and self-adaptation.