The Richard A. DeMillo Faculty Award

The Richard A. DeMillo Faculty Award is a $1 million endowed fund generating approximately $30,000 to $40,000 annually to support break-the-glass cybersecurity research at Georgia Tech: bold, risky, long-term work with the potential for outsized impact. 

In both scale and nature, it is unlike any other award the College gives. Unlike a chair or professorship tied to a single appointment, this award moves — recognizing a different faculty member each year and, over time, building a roster of researchers who carry Rich’s name forward. 

Eligibility extends across the entire Institute, not just the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy or the College of Computing, because the most consequential work in this field increasingly happens at the intersections. Recipients receive flexible funding to pursue and accelerate their work at exactly the moment when speed matters most. 

Selection is made by a faculty panel that includes the Dean of the College of Computing, a model Georgia Tech has used with real success in identifying the researchers doing the boldest work. It is a fitting structure for Rich: he spent his career betting on people willing to take risks, and this fund does the same, year after year, in perpetuity.