Una-May O'Reilly

Una-May O'Reilly is a Principal Research Scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), leading the ALFA group. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from Carleton University (1995), with prior roles including a postdoctoral appointment at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Her research focuses on cybersecurity, adversarial AI, software security, and disinformation dynamics, applying evolutionary algorithms and machine learning to address arms races in cyber defense and societal challenges like climate change communication.

Education:

• B.Sc., University of Calgary
• M.C.S., Carleton University
• Ph.D., Carleton University (1995)

Research Interests:

• Adversarial machine learning for secure systems
• Coevolutionary algorithms in cybersecurity and healthcare
• Program comprehension via neuroscience and AI
• Climate disinformation mitigation on social media
• Large language model applications in code synthesis and threat hunting

Key Projects:

• Adversarial Cyber Security: Modeling cyber attack-defense arms races
• GIGABEATS: AI-driven medical sensor data analysis for critical care
• MOOC Learner Project: Data science for online education insights

Awards:

• EvoStar Award (2013) for contributions to evolutionary computation
• Fellow of ACM Sig-EVO

Leadership & Service:

• Co-founder and Vice-Chair of ACM Sig-EVO
• Former Chair of GECCO (2005), major evolutionary computation conference
• Editorial roles in Evolutionary Computation and Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines

Labs & Groups: Leads the AnyScale Learning for All (ALFA) group at CSAIL, focusing on scalable AI for cybersecurity, healthcare, and education.