George Ciprian Necula

Known for his influential Ph.D. thesis first describing proof-carrying code, Necula completed his doctorate at Carnegie Mellon University under programming languages researcher Peter Lee. Originally from Baia Mare, Romania, he attended the Polytechnic University of Bucharest before coming to Carnegie Mellon University in the United States. His thesis on proof-carrying code introduced a mechanism to allow untrusted machine code to run safely without performance overhead. He joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley in 1998.

Necula's subsequent work focused on open-source analysis, verification, and transformation tools for C, including C Intermediate Language (CIL), CCured, and Deputy.