SERC Mourns Passing of Dr. Barry Horowitz

Longtime members of the SERC community are sad for the passing of Dr. Barry Horowitz, who was a prolific systems engineer, a leader of the university research network, a mentor, and a friend.

“Dr. Horowitz was a founding member of the SERC Research Council,” said SERC Executive Director Dr. Dinesh Verma. “He was always provocative, always supportive, always engaging with creative ideas and generous with his time to all of us within SERC.”

“Barry provided the vision for a new systems engineering approach to protect systems from cyberattacks,” added SERC CTO Tom McDermott. “His vision and commitment started the long-running SERC cyber resilience research area.”

“I’m heartbroken,” said researcher Megan Clifford. “Barry was a wonderful friend and mentor who truly looked out for me – and for so many others.  He had an exceptional ability to recognize individuals’ strengths and envision how they could contribute to the bigger picture. He also created space with gentle guidance for people to grow into their roles. I’ll never forget the impact he had, especially on my own life. He will be deeply missed.”

Dr. Horowitz was the Munster Professor of Systems Engineering at the University of Virginia, having joined the faculty in 2001 after almost 30 years working for the MITRE Corporation, where he reached the leadership roles of president and COO. At MITRE, he led FAA-sponsored research that evolved into an international system for commercial aircraft collision avoidance. During Operation Desert Storm, he led integration efforts for a system to track and destroy SCUD missile carriers, earning him the Air Force’s highest award for a civilian.

Dr. Horowitz was also elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1996, and he served on the Naval Studies Board, on General Electric’s Academic Software Advisory Panel, and as a Cyber Security Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

In addition to providing an astute voice on the SERC Research Council, Dr. Horowitz led or contributed to research reports on security engineering, system aware cybersecurity, cyber security requirements methodology, and others. He led a SERC Talks webinar on managing real-time responses to cyberattacks on physical systems.

See more of Dr. Horowitz’s SERC contributions via the search page. A poignant highlight is a 2023 interview Dr. Peter Beling gave in which he described Dr. Horowitz as “without question, the person who inspired me the most in my career.”