Experience

Intel

Principal Engineer, Oregon (June 2012–present)

I am an architect for x86 Memory Tagging Technology (formerly known as ChkTag):

As part of that role, I participate in the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group:

My research has generated or influenced hardware and software security architectures deployed on a large proportion of computer systems in use today.

I have contributed to shipping processor security technologies, including Control-Flow Enforcement Technology (CET) and VT-Redirect Protection (VT-rp). Such technologies are important for mitigating AI-generated exploits.

I was Principal Investigator for Intel’s project on Cryptographic Capability Computing (C3) in the DARPA HARDEN program.

I designed and co-developed deterministic spatial safety support for MiraclePtr in the Chrome browser.

My LLVM-based research on shielding stack memory from corruption helped lead to a 2022 paper in a top-tier programming languages conference covered by ZDNet.

I also researched approaches for scalable isolation, for example using segmentation to accelerate WebAssembly (upstreamed in wasm2c).

Education

M.S. & Ph.D. in Computer Science

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, August 2011.

Ph.D. dissertation: Compact Integrity-Aware Architectures. Committee:

M.S. thesis: Dependable Emergency-Response Networking Based on Retaskable Network Infrastructures.

National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellow.

Postdoc through May 2012.

B.S. in Computer Science

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, May 2005.

UWEC Outstanding CS Senior of the Year, 2005. Karlgaard Scholarship. Summa cum laude. National Merit Scholarship Finalist.

Skills

C++
C
x86 assembly language
Python
Rust
LLVM/Clang
SMT-LIB / Z3 (completed Coursera course)

Awards

2025 — UWEC Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Alumni Association. "The Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award recognizes distinguished service to the community, state or nation in a manner that brings credit upon the award recipient and UW-Eau Claire."
2024 — Intel Hardware Security Academic Award Honorable Mention, for Hardware-assisted Fault Isolation (HFI)
2024 — IEEE MICRO Top Picks, for "Hardware-Assisted Fault Isolation: Going Beyond the Limits of Software-Based Sandboxing"
2023 — ASPLOS Distinguished Paper, for "Going beyond the Limits of SFI: Flexible and Secure Hardware-Assisted In-Process Isolation with HFI"
2022 — ACM Senior Member (joined November 2011)
2022 — IEEE Senior Member (joined March 2013)
2008 — HICSS Best Paper, for "An Integrated Architecture for Demand Response Communications and Control"

Program committees

Mentoring

2023–present: Lead Intel liaison for Allocamelus project at VUSec. Intel Outstanding Researcher Award for Prof. Cristiano Giuffrida.
Summer 2021, 2022, and 2023: Four mentees in the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) summer program.
2021–2024: Lead Intel liaison for RARE-funded project at UCSD.
2020–present: High schooler and author of an introductory book on cryptography. TV interview.
2019–2022: Intel liaison (eventually lead Intel liaison) for the DARPA-sponsored SRC JUMP CONIX center.
2018–present: Multiple mentees inside Intel.
2013: USAFA students on innovative usages for Intel VT-x.

Volunteering

Computer Science Category Judge at the 2020–2023 NWSE Beaverton Hillsboro Science Expo

Favorite resources

Math Review lectures by Prof. Susan Harrison (who first connected me with the UWEC CS program)