Dawn Song
Dawn Song is a UC Berkeley computer science professor and Berkeley RDI co-director researching computer security, privacy and AI safety.
Contents14 sections
Key facts
1996–2002Education
She earned a physics bachelor’s degree at Tsinghua in 1996, a computer science master’s at Carnegie Mellon in 1999 and a Berkeley doctorate in 2002.[1]
2002–2007Academic Career
She was a Carnegie Mellon assistant professor from 2002 to 2007, then joined Berkeley.[2]
2010MacArthur Fellowship
She received a MacArthur Fellowship. The foundation highlighted her analysis of program behavior and shared vulnerabilities, patch analysis and cryptographic defenses.[2]
2011–2012Ensighta
She founded malware-detection company Ensighta Security. Berkeley’s technology-transfer office records its founding in 2011 and acquisition by FireEye for $3.2 million in 2012.[3]
2018Oasis Labs
She cofounded Oasis Labs to apply blockchain technology to privacy protection.[4]
On July 9, the company announced $45 million from investors including a16zAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry crypto, Accel and Binance Labs. The release named her CEO and described plans for privacy-preserving blockchain cloud computing.[5]
2019ACM Fellow
She was elected an ACM Fellow.[1]
2023–2024Research Awards
Her personal website lists a 2023 NeurIPS Outstanding Paper Award and the 2024 NSA Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Award.[6]
2024–2025Virtue AI
In her own announcement, she recalled cofounding Virtue AI in 2024 to translate trustworthy-AI research into enterprise security.[7]
On April 15, 2025, Virtue AI announced $30 million in combined seed and Series A funding from investors including Lightspeed, Walden Catalyst and Prosperity7. It named Bo LiBo LiBo Li researches trustworthy machine learning and is an Abbasi Associate Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a cofounder of Virtue AI.Open the full entry, Dawn Song, Carlos Guestrin and Sanmi Koyejo as cofounders.[8]
2025Academy Election
She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[9]
2025AI2050
She became an AI2050 Senior Fellow. Her project aims to pair AI-generated code with security specifications and mathematical proofs to prevent vulnerabilities before deployment.[10]
2026Meta and Acquisition
She announced plans to join Meta Superintelligence Labs as Vice President of AI Research alongside Virtue AI colleagues, working on frontier-model and agent safety and security.[7]
On August 17, Fortinet announced its acquisition of Virtue AI. Terms were undisclosed; the buyer described the consideration as immaterial to its business.[11]
Other Academic Honors
Her honors include Guggenheim, Sloan and NSF CAREER funding; she is an IEEE Fellow.[12]
Related Organizations, Websites, and Public Accounts
UC Berkeley Faculty Profile: https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Homepages/song.html (opens in a new window)[12]
Dawn Song Personal Website: Personal links: https://dawnsong.io/ (opens in a new window)[6]
X: Public account: https://x.com/dawnsongtweets (opens in a new window)[6]
Virtue AI: Official link: https://www.virtueai.com/ (opens in a new window)[13]
Oasis Labs: Official link: https://www.oasislabs.com/ (opens in a new window)[5]
Sources
- 物理系校友宋晓东获选2019 ACM Fellow (opens in a new window)
- Dawn Song (opens in a new window)
- Ensighta Security, Inc. (opens in a new window)
- Dawn Song: Privacy protector (opens in a new window)
- Oasis Labs Raises $45 Million to Launch Privacy-first Cloud Computing on Blockchain (opens in a new window)
- Dawn Xiaodong Song's Home Page (opens in a new window)
- Dawn Song’s Post (opens in a new window)
- Virtue AI Raises $30 Million in Seed and Series A Funding to Bridge the Critical AI Security Gap (opens in a new window)
- Dawn X. Song (opens in a new window)
- Dawn Song (opens in a new window)
- Fortinet Advances Continuous AI Protection with the Acquisition of Virtue AI (opens in a new window)
- Dawn Song: Faculty Home Page (opens in a new window)
- About Virtue AI | Enterprise AI Safety & Security Platform (opens in a new window)