Mark D. Brandyberry

As co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Illinois Rocstar, Dr. Mark D. Brandyberry leads the technical program of the company. Dr. Brandyberry’s technical strengths include software engineering, statistical analyses, risk assessment, and engineering analyses of complex systems modeling; he also has a proven track record of successful business planning and accounting for large-scale, complex engineering projects. Dr. Brandyberry served as a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Illinois’s Center for Simulation of Advanced Rockets (CSAR) and the Midwest Structural Sciences Center and was a part-time faculty member in the Computer Science and Information Technology Department at Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois.

Dr. Brandyberry received his Ph.D. in Engineering from UCLA and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois. Following his doctoral work, Dr. Brandyberry conducted risk, safety, and environmental analyses for high-risk nuclear facilities at the Department of Energy Savannah River Laboratory and later joined Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) as a senior project lead and task manager for various risk assessment, engineering analysis, and software development projects. From 2001-2013, Dr. Brandyberry led software verification, validation, engineering, and uncertainty quantifications, as well as simulation grid generation and large-scale simulation production at the University of Illinois. He has been the lead author on and co-authored several large multi-volume risk assessments, and over 40 journal and conference papers and reports. He is currently a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).