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Professor Dino Distefano, Professor of Software Verification at Queen Mary University of London, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Professor Distefano is among 75 new Fellows elected by the Academy this year, recognising engineers and engineering researchers whose work has made an important contribution to the profession.

Based in Queen Mary's School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Professor Distefano's research focuses on automatic program verification – developing methods that can help analyse software and identify errors automatically. His work includes the application of separation logic to software analysis and model checking.

His research has also had an impact beyond academia. Professor Distefano was a founder of Monoidics, a technology company specialising in automatic software verification and analysis, which was acquired by Facebook in 2013.

The Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowship recognises outstanding and sustained contributions to engineering. Fellows form a community of leading engineers from across academia, industry and government.

Professor Distefano has previously been recognised by the Academy, receiving its Silver Medal in 2014 for his contribution to engineering research and its successful application. He has also received the Roger Needham Award, the CAV Award and other major honours for his work in computer science and software verification.

The new Fellows will be formally welcomed to the Academy at its annual Fellowship celebrations in October 2026. You can access Professor Distefano's fellowship profile via the following link.