Carl Elks

Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University

Carl Elks, a renowned professional with over 20 years of experience, specializes in analyzing, designing, and evaluating dependable embedded systems for critical infrastructure such as nuclear power, rail systems, flight control systems, electric power grid management, and SCADA systems.

Throughout his career, Dr. Elks has been dedicated to advancing safety assessment, cyber-security, and fault tolerance/resilience through education, innovation, and technology demonstration projects. He is a recognized expert in digital I&C, fault injection methods, and safety assessment methods for highly critical systems.

During his time at NASA, Dr. Elks played a key role in the development of full-authority digital flight control technology for civil air transports, which is now commonly used in fly-by-wire airliners. His recent projects have significantly enhanced safety and security assessment methods for licensing digital safety systems in Nuclear Power Plants.

Apart from his professional accomplishments, Dr. Elks has held various leadership roles such as being the past chair of the IEEE International Symposium on Network Cloud Computing and Applications and a co-founder of the Center for Safe and Secure Nuclear Energy at the Center for Advanced Engineering Research in Lynchburg, Virginia.

His educational background includes a PhD in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Virginia (UVA), where he also studied Engineering at the doctoral level. Dr. Elks has served as an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University and has previous affiliations with organizations like UVA, Barron Associates Inc, and NASA Langley Research Center.

In his recent research and teaching pursuits, Dr. Elks focuses on resilient Cyber Physical Systems, formal verification, fault injection methods and tools, cyber threat analysis, Human Systems Interactions, Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles, Renewable Energy Systems, and modernization strategies for energy and utility infrastructures.