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Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Podcast Series

Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Podcast Series

Members of Technical Staff at the Software Engineering Institute 432 Episodes Jun 24, 2026

The SEI Podcast Series presents conversations in software engineering, cybersecurity, and future technologies, featuring members of the technical staff at the Software Engineering Institute.

Episodes

From Coordination Chaos to Mission Focus: The Waypoints Framework Jun 24, 2026 18:38 In aviation, waypoints guide pilots through complex flight plans, providing some structure but maintaining flexibility. Kevin Dooley, a senior Agile transformation leader at the SEI, adopted this concept to solve one of defense acquisition's most persistent challenges: synchronizing dozens of interdependent teams without drowning in administrative noise and overhead. In the latest podcast from the
An LLM Evaluation Framework for High-Stakes AI Jun 11, 2026 16:33 Experimentation and validation of LLM performance is critical when building LLM-driven systems that must reliably deliver a service, from customer service chat bots to intelligence analysis tools. To help teams meet the need for rigorous evaluation methods, a research team in the SEI's AI Division led by Violet Turri has developed the Evaluating Large Language Models (ELM) library, which is built
Protecting AI Systems Against Data Poisoning Jun 4, 2026 20:01 Data poisoning—where adversaries tamper with training data to corrupt model behavior—poses significant risks as AI adoption expands across critical sectors. Organizations without mechanisms in place to detect or prevent data poisoning are open to an avenue of attack that, once exploited, is difficult to remediate. Machine unlearning and model retraining are not always viable or effective solution
Goal-Line Defense: A Tool to Discover and Mitigate UEFI Vulnerabilities Apr 15, 2026 41:19 As recently as December 2025, the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI's) CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) documented a UEFI-related vulnerability in certain motherboard models, illustrating that early-boot firmware behavior continues to present security challenges despite requiring local physical access to exploit. While CERT/CC reported seven UEFI vulnerabilities in 2
Leadership, Legacy, and the Power of Mentors: Insights from Dr. Paul Nielsen Apr 6, 2026 18:58 In February 2026, Paul Nielsen announced that he will transition out of his role as director and chief executive officer of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University. During Nielsen's tenure, the SEI has marked major institutional milestones that underscore its enduring role in strengthening the security, resilience, and reliability of the nation's software- and AI-int
With a Little Help from Our Civilian Friends: Cybersecurity Reserve Is Both Feasible and Advisable Mar 20, 2026 49:17 Cybersecurity staffing shortages are a major concern in the government given the increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks on the nation's critical infrastructure. In the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Congress tasked the Pentagon with finding flexible options to address cyber staffing needs. The Pentagon commissioned the SEI to conduct an independent study to assess the feasibil
Maturing AI Adoption: From Chaos to Consistency Mar 2, 2026 25:32 While Stanford University found that AI investments, optimism, and accessibility are rising, a recent MIT report suggests that 95 percent of organizations are realizing no returns on their generative AI investments. Research from Accenture found that only 8 percent of companies are scaling AI at an enterprise level and embedding the technology into core business strategy to maximize value. Mismat
Temporal Memory Safety in C and C++: An AI-Enhanced Pointer Ownership Model Feb 9, 2026 24:25 In October 2025, CyberPress reported a critical security vulnerability in the Redis Server, an open-source in-memory database that allowed authenticated attackers to achieve remote code execution through a use-after-free flaw in the Lua scripting engine. In 2024, another prominent temporal memory safety flaw was found in the Netfilter subsystem in the Linux kernel: CVE-2024-1086. Bugs related to t
AI for the Warfighter: Acquisition Challenges and Guidance Jan 29, 2026 24:48 On November 7, the Department of War released an acquisition transformation strategy that seeks to remove bureaucratic hurdles and streamline acquisition processes to enable even more rapid adoption of technologies, including artificial intelligence. Getting AI into the hands of warfighters requires disciplined AI Engineering. In this podcast from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineerin
Visibility Through the Clouds with Network Flow Logs Jan 15, 2026 35:59 Organizations, including the U.S. military, are increasingly adopting cloud deployments for their flexibility and cost savings. The shared security model utilized by cloud service providers removes some of the adopting organization's responsibility for system administration and security. But it leaves them on the hook for monitoring hosted applications and resources. Cloud flow logs are a valuable
Orchestrating the Chaos: Protecting Wireless Networks from Cyber Attacks Dec 2, 2025 37:07 From early 2022 through late 2024, a group of threat actors publicly known as APT28 exploited known vulnerabilities, such as CVE-2022-38028, to remotely and wirelessly access sensitive information from a targeted company network. This attack did not require any hardware to be placed in the vicinity of the targeted company's network as the attackers were able to execute remotely from thousands of
From Data to Performance: Understanding and Improving Your AI Model Nov 10, 2025 26:42 Modern data analytic methods and tools—including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) classifiers—are revolutionizing prediction capabilities and automation through their capacity to analyze and classify data. To produce such results, these methods depend on correlations. However, an overreliance on correlations can lead to prediction bias and reduced confidence in AI outputs.

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