Sam Malek, PhD
- Professor of Software Engineering, University of California
- 25+ years of experience in academia and industry
- 90+ prior software-related litigation matters
- 70+ prior testimonies in trials and depositions
- Author of 140+ peer-reviewed publications
- Test of Time Award from Association for Computing Machinery
- CAREER Award from National Science Foundation
- Irvine, California
- sam@cyberonixexperts.com
- +1 (888) 668-8391
Education
PhD, Computer Science, University of Southern California, 2007
MS, Computer Science, University of Southern California, 2004
BS, Information and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, 2000
Academic Experience
Sam Malek is a Software Engineering Professor at UC Irvine’s School of Information and Computer Sciences, where he directs the Institute for Software Research and Software Engineering and Analysis Laboratory.
His research spans software design and architecture, distributed and embedded systems, mobile computing, web technologies, and software security. With 140+ peer-reviewed publications cited over 12,000 times (Google Scholar), Prof. Malek ranks in the top 0.05% of scholars worldwide in software systems research according to ScholarGPS. His notable awards include the ACM Distinguished Paper Award (2025), ACM SIGSOFT Test-of-Time Award (2020) and NSF CAREER Award (2013).
Prof. Malek teaches undergraduate and graduate computer science courses while maintaining an active research program. Software systems from his lab have been adopted by major organizations including Boeing, Bosch, NASA, DHS, and FBI. He has delivered 50+ conference presentations and served as organizer/reviewer for 150+ scientific conferences.
Currently, he serves on the editorial boards of ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems, and Springer Journal of Computing. He is a member of ACM, ACM SIGSOFT, and IEEE.
Industry Experience
Prior to academia, Prof. Malek held software engineering, architecture, and programming roles at Boeing, PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting (later IBM), FieldCentrix, and Neural Computing Systems Lab.
He designed, developed, and managed large-scale software systems spanning enterprise automation, e-commerce, mobile, web-based, and data-driven applications. At Boeing, he served as a software architect on the Future Combat Systems project, pioneering the development of autonomous aerial vehicles (drones) and other advanced software capabilities.
Litigation Experience
Prof. Malek has served as an expert witness in 90+ cases covering a broad range of software technologies. His expertise includes intellectual property matters (patent, trade secret, copyright) and breach of contract disputes involving software development projects. He has drafted validity, invalidity, infringement, and non-infringement reports.
He has testified in high-stakes jury trials in US district courts and provided declarations and deposition testimony to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in Inter Partes Reviews (IPR). Drawing on his teaching experience, Prof. Malek effectively explains complex technical concepts to non-technical jurors using clear analogies and demonstratives. References from attorneys in prior cases are available upon request.
