Carnegie Mellon Names Jason M. Brown Director and CEO of the Software Engineering Institute

Carnegie Mellon University has named Jason M. Brown as director and chief executive officer of the Software Engineering Institute, effective November 16, succeeding Paul Nielsen, who joined the SEI in 2004 and became its director and CEO later that year. PR Newswire published the announcement on November 2, 2026.

Brown's Path From the Air Force to Applied Intuition

Brown currently serves as general manager, government, at Applied Intuition, where he leads work to develop and deploy software and autonomous technologies for government and defense customers. Before that, he led Google's professional services business for defense. He has held senior U.S. Air Force leadership positions focused on intelligence, emerging technology and national security.

As director of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force Strategic Studies Group, Brown developed and implemented the service's emerging-technology strategy and founded the U.S. Air Force Artificial Intelligence Accelerator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a founding member of the Department of Defense's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center and is an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University, where he teaches artificial intelligence and national security.

Theresa Mayer, CMU's vice president for research, said Brown "understands national-security missions from the perspective of a military leader, the development and deployment of emerging technologies from his work in industry and the contributions universities can make through research and education." Brown said "the most powerful results occur when researchers, military professionals and industry partners work closely enough to recognize possibilities that no one organization would identify on its own."

As director and CEO, Brown will set the SEI's strategic direction, oversee its research, engineering and technology-transition activities and serve as its principal representative to federal sponsors and partners. The SEI is a Department of War-sponsored, federally funded research and development center operated by Carnegie Mellon.

Nielsen's 22 Years Leading the Institute

Nielsen guided the institute through more than two decades of technological change, institutional growth and expanded mission responsibility. John Gilligan, chair of the SEI Board of Visitors, said the board thanks Nielsen "for his superb leadership in guiding the SEI for the past 22 years." Nielsen will remain engaged through the leadership transition.

SEI's Recent AI and Standards Work

According to akta.pro company records, the SEI released AI Engineering Practices in April 2026 to accelerate the development of mission-capable AI systems for defense and national security applications, codifying the operational outputs of the National AI Engineering Initiative. The same records show the SEI and Accenture jointly released the AI Adoption Maturity Model in June 2026, and the SEI released a new Fortran Coding Standard for software development in mission-critical environments that month. The records list the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as primary sponsor of the National AI Engineering Initiative and Northrop Grumman as a collaborator in it.

Nielsen Reception Set for Early 2027

Carnegie Mellon will celebrate Nielsen's service and contributions to the SEI and the nation at a reception in early 2027, with details to come soon.