Faculty Research Award
This award is presented annually to an ASU faculty member whose innovative research assists individuals and communities in Arizona and around the world.
Stephanie Forrest, a pioneering researcher of biological computation, is this year’s recipient of the Faculty Research Achievement Award.
- Founding director of Arizona State University’s Biodesign Center for Biocomputation, Security and Society.
- Pioneered techniques that allow computers to repair their own bugs and fix security weaknesses — inspired by how biological systems evolve and protect themselves.
Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the organization’s highest membership distinction.
Stephanie Forrest is the founding director of Arizona State University’s Biodesign Center for Biocomputation, Security and Society and a professor of computer science in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence. A trailblazing computer scientist, Forrest studies computation in biology, including biological modeling of immunological processes and evolutionary diseases, as well as cybersecurity and software engineering. She focuses on evolutionary computation, defined as a branch of AI that uses nature-inspired algorithms to mimic natural evolution and find solutions to complex problems.
In cybersecurity, Forrest developed the first practical system that detects unusual malicious computer behavior — the digital equivalent of noticing when a body starts showing signs of infection. She introduced new ways to make computers harder to hack by ensuring that they don’t all work in exactly the same way — engineering diversity into computing to disrupt software monoculture. In addition, she designed new methods to protect data without relying on traditional encryption . Her work on large-scale security issues include theoretical and data-driven models for cybersecurity challenges such as data breaches, Internet chokepoints, and Internet censorship.
In software engineering, Forrest and her colleagues pioneered techniques that allow computers to automatically repair their own bugs, fix security weaknesses, run faster and use less energy — all inspired by how biological systems evolve through natural selection.
Forrest’s research in biological modeling spans projects on the adaptive immune response, influenza, COVID-19, cancer and vaccine design. As just one example, during the pandemic, she and her collaborators created a detailed 3D computer simulation showing how the COVID-19 virus spreads through lung tissue, allowing scientists to explore and test ideas that would be impossible to study directly in the body.
In 2015, Forrest was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the organization’s highest membership grade. She has earned numerous awards throughout her career, including the 1991 NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, 2012 ACM and AAAI Allen Newell Award, 2019 ICSE Most Influential Paper Award (for a paper published in the 2009 ICSE), the 2020 IEEE S&P Test of Time Award and the 2019 SIGEVO Impact Award.
Prior to joining ASU, Forrest was a Regents Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and a Jefferson Science Fellow in the U.S. Department of State. Currently, she is a member of the external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute and served nine years as a board member of the Computing Research Association, chairing its Government Affairs Committee.