Yuriy Brun, PhD
Professor of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst (Manning College of Information & Computer Sciences)
Serves as a software expert witness in IP litigation and advises businesses on software needs
IEEE Fellow and ACM Distinguished Member
Renowned researcher in automation, fairness, trust, security, artificial intelligence (AI), and complex software systems
NSF CAREER, SEAMS Most Influential Paper, IEEE TCSC Young Achiever, and several ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Awards
- Amherst, MA
- yuriy@cyberonixexperts.com
- +1 (888) 668-8391
Education
PhD, Computer Science, University of Southern California, 2008
MS, Computer Science, University of Southern California, 2006
MEng., Elec. Eng. & Comp. Sci., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003
BS, Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003
BS, Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003
Academic Excellence
Yuriy Brun is a Professor with the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a Distinguished Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). His research focuses on engineering complex software systems, including those that use artificial intelligence and machine learning. Prof. Brun received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Southern California in 2008 and was a Computing Innovation postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington until 2012.
Prof. Brun has received numerous awards recognizing his research and teaching excellence. These include the NSF CAREER Award, the ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE) Test of Time Honorable Mention Award, the SEAMS Most Influential Paper Award, and the IEEE TCSC Young Achiever in Scalable Computing Award. He has also received a Best Paper Award, six ACM SIGSOFT and SIGPLAN Distinguished Paper Awards, and an ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Artifact Award. His research has been supported by a Microsoft Research Software Engineering Innovation Foundation Award, a Google Faculty Research Award, a Google Inclusion Research Award, and an Amazon Research Award. For teaching, he has been honored with a Lilly Fellowship for Teaching Excellence and the College Outstanding Teacher Award. In addition, he has received three Distinguished Reviewer Awards.
He also founded the Rising Stars in Computer Science talk series at UMass Amherst.
Research & Leadership
Professor Brun’s research is driven by a bold ambition to transform how software is built, emphasizing automation, correctness, fairness, trust, and self-adaptation across complex systems. His research lab (LASER) pursues high-risk, high-impact challenges with real potential to reshape both academic and industrial practices.
Key research areas include:
- Automated Formal Verification & Proof Synthesis: Innovatively using natural language processing and large language models (LLMs) to autonomously construct proofs in Coq and Isabelle, achieving high success rates in theorem proving and garnering top awards.
- Fairness, Safety, and Trust in AI Systems: Professor Brun is a pioneer in software fairness, defining the field, developing testing techniques, bias mitigation methods, and reinforcement learning approaches for long-term fairness and safety guarantees. His work also explores how bias influences trust and how visual designs affect users’ perception of AI systems.
- High-Quality Automated Program Repair: Longstanding contributions include a foundational framework to detect and measure overfitting in automated fixes, improving reliability and aligning with industry practices.
- Speculative Analysis & Developer Tooling: Developed speculative analysis techniques to anticipate and prevent developer workflow conflicts, recognized as extremely influential and applied in industry settings, including Microsoft and Infosys.
Final Words
Professor Yuriy Brun blends rigorous scholarship with visionary innovation, bridging theoretical advances and real-world applications in software engineering, AI, and trustworthy computing. His leadership in automation, fairness, and correctness continues to shape both academic thought and industry tools.
