High Confidence Software and Systems Conference | Science of Security Virtual Organization

About HCSS

Each year, the High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS) Conference convenes leading researchers to explore groundbreaking advancements in the design and development of critical systems. The conference focuses on the scientific and technological innovations needed to drive the next generation of life-, safety-, security-, and mission-critical systems. Join us for the 25th annual HCSS Conference, taking place May 12–14, 2025.

The pervasive role of information technology and cyber-physical systems (CPS) in our lives forces us to rely in diverse and often unexpected ways upon the correctness and integrity of those computing systems—with our privacy, safety, security, and well-being all increasingly dependent upon them.

The High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS) Conference, now in its third decade, was created to support the interchange of ideas among researchers, practitioners, and research managers from Government, research labs, and industry practice. HCSS provides a forum for dialogue centered upon the development of scientific foundations together with innovative and enabling software and hardware technologies for the assured engineering of complex computing systems. These systems, which include networked and cyber-physical systems, must be capable of interacting correctly, safely, and securely with humans and the physical world even while they operate in changing and possibly malicious environments with unforeseen conditions. In many cases, they must be certifiably dependable.

New foundations in science, technology, and advanced practice continue to be needed to build these systems with computing, communication, information, and control pervasively embedded at all levels. These new foundations have the potential to enable entirely new generations of engineering designs that are becoming essential for effectively operating life-, safety-, security-, and mission-critical applications, and that can enhance US competitiveness across economic and industrial sectors, while assuring the privacy, safety, and security of our Nation’s citizenry.

With a technical emphasis on mathematically-based tools and techniques, and scientific foundations supporting evidence creation and systems assurance and security, the HCSS conference pursues the goal of growing a skilled practitioner community through a program of invited speakers, panel discussions, and a relevant and compelling technical track. The conference vision is one of motivating, sustaining, and growing a community focused around the creation of dependable systems that are capable, efficient, and responsive; that can work in dangerous or inaccessible environments; that can support large-scale, distributed coordination; that augment human capabilities; that can advance the mission of national security; and that enhance quality of life, safety, and security.

Questions? Email the organizers at hcss@sos-vo.org

2026 Program Committee

P R O G R A M C O - C H A I R S
MIKE DODDS joined Galois in 2017 as a Principal Scientist. He specializes in applying formal methods to systems engineering problems in areas such as cryptography, distributed protocols, cyber-physical systems, and hardware semantics. Much of his work has focused on building tools that can be used by non-expert developers as part of their regular engineering workflow. He has led a range of projects at Galois, including work on CN, a unified testing and verification tool for C code; Daedalus, a safe parsing language developed under the DARPA SafeDocs project; c2rust, a transpiler used by several popular Rust crates; and several verified cryptography projects using SAW and Cryptol, including a long-running collaboration with Amazon Web Services on core components of their AWS-LibCrypto library. Mike received his PhD from the University of York, UK, in 2008, under the supervision of Dr. Detlef Plump. He then spent four years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, working with Dr. Matthew Parkinson and Prof. Peter Sewell. He returned to the University of York as a lecturer (in US terms, an associate professor) from 2012 to 2017, before joining Galois.		SANDEEP NEEMA is a Professor with the Department of Computer Science, and Director of the Institute for Software Integrated Systems, Vanderbilt University. He served a Program manager at DARPA’s Information Innovation Office (I2O) from July 2016 till September 2022. In his tenure at DARPA he conceived, developed, and managed influential programs at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Physical Systems, that included programs such as Assured Autonomy, Symbiotic Design of Cyber Physical Systems, and Assured Neurosymbolic Learning and Reasoning. His research interests include Cyber Physical Systems, Model-based Design Methodologies, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and Distributed Real-time Systems. Dr. Neema has authored and co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed conference, journal publications, and book chapters. Dr. Neema holds a Doctorate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Vanderbilt University, and a Master’s in Electrical Engineering from Utah State University. He earned a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India.
P R O G R A M C O M M I T T E E
PERRY ALEXANDER, The University of Kansas JUNE ANDRONICK, Proofcraft DARREN COFER, Collins Aerospace KATHLEEN FISHER, DARPA SHELLY FREITAS, NSA JOHN HATCLIFF, Kansas State University JOHN LAUNCHBURY, Galois, Inc. PATRICK LINCOLN, SRI International STEPHEN MAGILL, Sonatype	BRAD MARTIN, Independent LEE PIKE, Amazon Web Services RAY RICHARDS, Leidos KRISTIN YVONNE ROZIER, Iowa State University WILLIAM SCHERLIS, Carnegie Mellon University ERIC W. SMITH, Kestrel Institute ADAM W, National Cyber Security Centre SEAN WEAVER, DARPA MATT WILDING, DARPA
O R G A N I Z A T I O N
KATIE DEY, Vanderbilt University