Sam Malek, PhD

  • Professor of Software Engineering, University of California
  • 25+ years of experience in academia and industry
  • 70+ prior software-related litigation matters
  • 50+ prior testimonies in trials and depositions
  • Renowned author of 120+ peer-reviewed publications
Curriculum Vitae

Education

PhD, Computer Science, University of Southern California, 2007

MS, Computer Science, University of Southern California, 2004

BS, Information and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, 2000

Academic Experience

Sam Malek is a Software Engineering Professor in the Informatics Department within the School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He is also Director of the Institute for Software Research and Software Engineering and Analysis Laboratory.

 

His research is in the field of software engineering, and to date his focus has spanned the areas of software design and architecture, distributed and embedded systems, smartphone and mobile computing, internet and web technologies, and software dependability and security. Results of his research have appeared in more than 120 manuscripts, which have been published in peer-reviewed scientific conferences and journals. These publications have been cited more than 10,000 times according to Google Scholar.

 

He has received numerous awards for his scientific contributions to the field of computer science, including the ACM SIGSOFT test-of-time award (2020), National Science Foundation CAREER award (2013), GMU Emerging Researcher/Scholar/Creator award (2013), and GMU Computer Science Department Outstanding Faculty Research Award (2011).

 

In addition to his research activities, he regularly teaches a variety of both undergraduate and graduate courses in computer science at the university. Software systems produced in his research lab have been adopted for use by both private (e.g., Boeing, Bosch) and public (e.g., NASA, DHS, FBI) organizations. He has given over 50 formal presentations at scientific conferences of software engineering academics and professionals.

 

He has served as organizer and reviewer of more than 150 scientific conferences. He is currently on the editorial board of the ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems, and Springer Journal of Computing . He is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Industry Experience

Prior to his academic appointment, Prof. Malek worked for several years as a software engineer, software architect, and programmer at a variety of companies, namely the Boeing Company, PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting (later acquired by International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation), FieldCentrix, and Neural Computing Systems Lab.

 

During his tenure in the industry, he gained professional experience in the design, development, and management of large-scale software engineering efforts. These efforts involved the engineering of a variety of enterprise automation, ecommerce, mobile, web-based, and data-driven software systems. The majority of his experiences as a practitioner in the industry dealt with the development of advanced software capabilities. Among others, at Boeing, he was one of the software architects in the Future Combat Systems project. This project pioneered the development of numerous autonomous aerial vehicles, nowadays commonly referred to as drones.

Litigation Experience

In his capacity as an expert witness in more than 70 cases, Prof. Malek has come across and testified about a broad range of software technologies. He has extensive experience with intellectual property cases involving patent, trade secret, and copyright law. He has drafted validity, invalidity, infringement, and non-infrignement reports, summarizing his opinions in these matters. He also has extensive experience with breach of contract disputes, often involving software development projects.

 

He has testified in high-stakes jury trials in various US district courts. He has submitted declarations and offered deposition testimony to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in the Inter Partes Review (IPR) of patents. In providing testimony at trial, he draws on his teaching skills as an instructor to breakdown complex technical concepts in ways that can be explained to non-technical jurors. He also make frequent use of analogies and demonstratives to explain the technical concepts in an intuitive manner. References from attorneys in prior cases can be provided upon request.