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Year in Review 2025

The Software Engineering Institute establishes and advances software as a strategic advantage for national security. We lead and direct research and transition of software engineering, cyber, artificial intelligence, and acquisition transformation at the intersection of academia, industry, and government. The SEI helps the Department of War (DoW) respond quickly to national challenges and emergencies. We serve the nation as a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) sponsored by the DoW’s Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering and are based at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

The 2025 SEI Year in Review highlights the work of the institute undertaken during the fiscal year spanning October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025.

Message from the Director and CEO Execution Strategy and Funding Sources Download the Summaries Booklet PDF
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News Briefs

  • Carleton Named SEI Fellow
  • SEI Awarded for Excellence in Counterintelligence
  • SEI Fellow, Founding CERT/CC Director Richard D. Pethia Inducted into FIRST Incident Response Hall of Fame
  • A Renewed Contract with the Department of War
Read All Briefs
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Warfighter-AI Partnership. An operator absorbs data streams from drones and aerial surveillance represented by screens with aerial photos on some, pipes and wires in the background leading to the operator.
EDITORIAL

Warfighter-AI Partnership: Beyond Humans in the Loop

SEI chief technology officer Tom Longstaff projects the steps needed for contextual AI to provide tactical warfighting advantage.

Feature Stories

The SEI is a recognized leader in software engineering, AI, cyber, and acquisition transformation. The following stories show how we developed tools, practices, and other materials that supported the DoW’s goals of advancing software engineering and ensuring national security in fiscal year 2025.

Software Engineering

DARPA AIR. F-16 fighter jets coordinate with drones against a background of clouds and digital waves.

Supporting DARPA’s AI Reinforcements: Tactical Autonomy AI for Future Air Combat

SEI infrastructure and software are enabling development and evaluation of AI-driven tactical autonomy solutions for multi-ship, beyond visual range air combat.

AVASST and CREW. A person at a computer, backgrounded by swirling data, hands something across a torn divide to a person on the right, backgrounded by a vault door. A flow diagram is in the foreground.

Automation Speeds Up Quality Assessments for Safety-Critical Software

The SEI creates automated tools for assessing code quality and risk, even for the most sensitive national security programs.

Shift Left study. Human hands work on a keyboard. A robotic hand operates a mouse and takes in streams of data and inputs. To the left there is a stack of abstracted code and a chatlog.

Efficacy of Human Teaming with Generative AI for Software Maintenance

An SEI study examined how early-stage developers use AI tools for complex code generation tasks.

Generative AI and the Future of DoW Software Modernization. An industrial loom weaves threads of old code and newer code into neat rows. A chat-based interface and gears also appear.

Generative AI and the Future of DoW Software Modernization

Generative AI may improve the speed and accuracy of code translation and architecture improvements in legacy defense software.

Social Media Analysis Elucidates Army’s Battle Damage Assessment. Four people in the field use communications technology. They are overlaid on overlapping rectangles to suggest social media data forming a feed. Behind them is a networked globe.

Social Media Analysis Elucidates Army’s Battle Damage Assessment

SEI algorithms recommend social media posts from battlefields for analyst review, enhancing situational awareness.

Cyber

Zero trust for weapon systems. The photo collage shows a Minuteman III missile, an F35 fighter, a long-range standoff weapon rendering, an ICBS, a pillar, and a lock.

Analyzing Applicability of Security and Zero Trust Principles to Weapon Systems

Adapting enterprise IT security and zero trust principles to weapon systems entails risks and tradeoffs. An SEI study explored them for the first time.

President's Cup Cybersecurity Competition transition. Five panels show video stills of the SEI's contributions to the first six years of the President's Cup. In the background is a topographic map used in several competitions.

President’s Cup Transition Leaves Lasting Legacy

CISA’s sixth annual cybersecurity competition marked the transition of support from the SEI after five years of success.

AI CTF auto-grader. A red knight chess piece is repelled by a blue knight holding a blue flag. Both knights appear on a combination chessboard and soccer field with other pieces and swirling nodes nearby.

AI Red-Teaming Gets a Large-Language-Model Upgrade

An auto-grader for AI capture-the-flag competitions produces vital data for competition development and AI exploit detection.

IMCITE. The US flag blends into the flags of the Philippines, Taiwan, and Bahrain. A steel foundry's crucible, server racks, and growth charts are overlaid.

Strengthening Foreign Infrastructure Resilience for U.S. National Security

The SEI stood up cyber training environments in three foreign countries to support U.S. strategic national security objectives.

AI

AI workflows. The Pentagon is overlaid with bar charts and a series of waves. Above is a workflow diagram marked with a generic star icon.

Identifying Opportunities for Pentagon Digital Transformation through Workflow Mapping

The SEI is exploring the integration of frontier AI into Pentagon workflows to enable decision advantage.

Advancing AI for mission. An operator faces monitors, himself faced by the outline of a figure of a field operator. In the background, a logistics squadron loads supplies.

Advancing AI for Mission Success

The SEI helps the Pentagon with organizational challenges with AI, including operator trust, tool selection, and workforce readiness.

DIU. First, an aerial image of disaster-struck buildings, the bottom pixelated. Second, two airmen regard a control room of people overlaid in an abstract cyberspace fading into a globe. Third, an illustrated machine learning model on a circuit board.

Accelerating Decision Advantage Through Innovation

The SEI partners with the Defense Innovation Unit to accelerate the acquisition of commercial technology across the Department of War.

Acquisition Transformation

Go Bag. An airman packing their bag is overlaid with an orienteering pattern, itself overlapping a simplified diagram of the Software Acquisition Pathway and a fact sheet.

Helping Defense Programs Get on the Software Acquisition Pathway

The Software Acquisition Go Bag helps defense software programs and industry partners advance their acquisition practices.

More

SEI events 2025. Ten photos of the locations of SEI events in 2025.

SEI Convenes Tech Community Around Critical Software Topics

SEI events connect government, industry, and academia to advance the state of AI acquisition and security and the quality, development, and security of software.

2025 Professional Accomplishments. Portrait photos of many SEI staff members.

Professional Leadership Enhances National Security Mission

In 2025, many SEI experts held leadership positions in professional organizations.

SEI 40th anniversary. A red jewel foreground images of the opening of the SEI Building in Pittsburgh, people getting CMMI books, the Pentagon, and airmen consulting a monitor. 1985-2025. 40 years. Advancing software for national security.

40 Years of Advancing Software for National Security

The SEI has made software do more, be more secure, deploy faster, and cost less, improving software systems vital to national defense and the broader information technology ecosystem.

Key publications. Four photos: bound volumes in archive boxes, hands flipping through clipped papers, a speaker at a podium, and hard-backed books.

Key Publications and Conference Presentations

SEI staff published many articles, conference papers, conference presentations, keynote presentations, and technical reports in fiscal year 2025.

2025 Leadership

CMU Leadership


Farnam Jahanian
 President

James H. Garrett, Jr.
 Provost and Chief Academic Officer

Theresa Mayer
 Vice President for Research

SEI Leadership


Paul Nielsen
 Director and Chief Executive Officer

David Thompson
 Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer

Tom Longstaff
 Chief Technology Officer

Anita Carleton
 Director, Software Solutions Division

Gregory J. Touhill
 Director, CERT Division

Matt Gaston
 Director, Artificial Intelligence Division

Cassandra Carricato
 Chief Financial Officer

Sandra Noonan
 General Counsel

Board of Visitors


Russell Crockett
 Member

Philip Dowd
 Member

John M. Gilligan
 Chair

J. Michael McQuade
 Member

Laura Richardson
 Member

Cedric T. Wins
 Member

Credits

Managers

Communication Services
Tamara Marshall-Keim

Strategic Communication & Media Relations
Amanda Parente

Communication Design
Cat Zaccardi

Technical Communication
Lope Lopez

Staff

Editor-in-Chief
Paul Ruggiero

Editorial
Hollen Barmer, Megan Dietz, Analisa Goodmann, Jennifer Hykes, Lope Lopez, Richard Lynch, Tamara Marshall-Keim, John Morley, Keturah Musuraca, Sheela Nath

Design
Christopher Baum

Illustration
Kurt Hess

Photography
CMU's Communications & Marketing Photography
David Biber

Web Support
Dan Tompkins, Keturah Musuraca

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