Dr Sofia Guerra FREng has made key contributions to safety and assurance of digital systems and is internationally recognised as an expert in dependability assessment and justification of digital systems in the nuclear industry. As a leader and entrepreneur, she led Adelard’s growth until acquisition in 2022 and set up Themistoclea in 2025. She has pioneered the UK approach to justifying digital devices for nuclear facilities, impacting major projects, including UK nuclear build projects. She shaped international approaches to safety assurance, authored IAEA reports, and is a key contributor to innovation on AI in nuclear applications.

Sara Tucci-Piergiovanni is a CEA Fellow and Senior Researcher at CEA LIST, Université Paris-Saclay, where she leads a research team working on decentralized and trustworthy computing. She has authored over 100 publications in the field of distributed systems, spanning both theoretical foundations and applied aspects. She is internationally recognized for her contributions to the theory and design of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. Her work has contributed to the transition from energy-hungry proof-of-work systems to secure and energy-efficient proof-of-stake blockchains, with a particular focus on the security of consensus protocols and incentive mechanisms.

John A McDermid Professor of Software Engineering at the University of York since 1987 and the Lloyd’s Register Foundation Chair of Safety since January 2024. His research interests include systems, software, and safety engineering. He is Director of the Lloyd’s Register Foundation-funded Centre for Assuring Autonomy (CfAA) focusing on the safety of robotics and autonomous systems. The CfAA is developing assurance frameworks and regulatory principles for autonomous systems and machine learning. These frameworks are being used across a range of sectors including healthcare and major transport modalities including aerospace, automotive, and maritime. He has advised government and industry on assurance and regulation of AI and autonomous systems, including contributing to the documents supporting the AI Summits in the UK, Korea and France, and participating in the AI Action Summit in Paris in 2025. He became a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2002 and was awarded an OBE in 2010.