Dr. Matt Gaston is the director of the AI Division at the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute and the founding director of the SEI’s Emerging Technology Center. He also holds an appointment as an adjunct associate professor at the Carnegie Mellon University Institute for Software Research.

As the director of the AI Division, Dr. Gaston leads a diverse team of researchers, engineers, and innovators who assist the US Department of Defense in developing and using leap-ahead AI capabilities that are reliable, responsible, safe, fair, and transparent. He is a leader of the community-wide National AI Engineering Initiative focused on establishing and growing the discipline of AI engineering. Since 2011, Dr. Gaston has led the establishment and growth of the SEI Emerging Technology Center (ETC). With his leadership, the ETC research portfolio has grown to include work in the fields of autonomy, analytics, visualization, and quantum computing.

Before joining the SEI, Dr. Gaston was the director of research at Viz, a business area of General Dynamics C4 Systems (GDC4S), where he led research activities for the Battle Management System Division. This work included a research portfolio that spanned command and control, intelligence analysis, information interaction and visualization, and cyber situational awareness. During this time, he also served as a member of the External Advisory Board for Sandia National Laboratory’s Network Grand Challenge, which focused on novel techniques and computing paradigms for large-scale network analysis applications in cybersecurity, counter-proliferation, and other national security issues.

Prior to his work with GDC4S, Dr. Gaston served as the technical director of the Advanced Analysis Laboratory at the U.S. National Security Agency, where he led numerous activities to bring new technology and innovation to the process and practice of intelligence analysis. His work included developing and applying advanced computational intelligence analysis techniques, leading the development of a massive-scale network analysis system, and co-founding the Institute for Analysis.

He has published in the fields of complex networks, machine learning, multi-agent systems, and operations research. He is a member of Leadership Pittsburgh XXVIII and is a founding trustee of Awesome Pittsburgh.

Dr. Gaston holds a BS in Mathematics from University of Notre Dame, 1998, and an MS and PhD in Computer Science from University of Maryland Baltimore County.