Two former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials who are now leaders in the strategic information technology and cybersecurity industry, as well as a senior engineering executive who has overseen systems infrastructure for Snapchat, Google and Amazon are among the esteemed alumni from the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering who will join the school’s Academy of Distinguished Alumni. In addition, a former School of Engineering dean has been named a Distinguished Friend. They will be recognized at an induction ceremony at an Engineering Celebration Dinner on April 10.
The three distinguished alumni honorees are Ira “Gus” Augustus Hunt III, Barbara M. Hunt, and Eric Christopher Young. Emeritus Dean Philippe Fauchet will join the School of Engineering’s Circle of Distinguished Friends.
“I am extremely honored to welcome these outstanding new members of the Academy of Distinguished Alumni and the new member of our Circle of Distinguished Friends and recognize their exceptional professional achievements and personal contributions to our School of Engineering community,” said Krish Roy, Bruce and Bridgitt Evans Dean of Engineering and University Distinguished Professor. “These inductees are world leaders in their fields, have a deep commitment to service to our nation and profession, and tirelessly work for the greater good of the community and society. I am grateful for their support to the School of Engineering and congratulate them on their incredible successes and impact. They epitomize the essence of a Vanderbilt Engineering education, our Dare-to-Grow mission, and in doing so they honor the school and the university.”
The Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes notable achievement, significant service and excellent character. The Distinguished Friends Award recognizes individuals associated with the School of Engineering, but who are not alumni, whose professional, civic and philanthropic pursuits reflect the high standards and values associated with the school. Honorees are chosen by an awards committee that comprises the dean, faculty members and alumni representatives.
2025 Distinguished Alumni Honorees
Ira “Gus” Augustus Hunt III, BE’77, MS’82
Ira “Gus” Hunt earned a bachelor’s and master’s in civil/structural engineering. He spent 28 years with the CIA where he retired as the agency’s chief technology officer. As CTO, he led the agency’s move to the C2S cloud and its adoption of artificial intelligence capabilities to support intelligence analysis and operations. Hunt is currently president and CEO of Hunt Technology, the company he started after his retirement from federal service. Hunt Technology focuses on strategic IT planning, cyber and data-centric security, big data analytics, AI/ML and cloud computing. Previously he was managing director and cyber lead for Accenture Federal Services in Arlington, Virginia, and chief architect for Bridgewater Associates, a hedge fund in Westport, Connecticut. Hunt serves on the board of directors for ePlus and VAST Data Federal and on the board of advisors for RealmOne, Enlightenment Capital and Mission Link. In addition to his IT work, Hunt directed a counter-narcotics covert action program designed to reduce the flow of narcotics into the United States.
Barbara M. Hunt, BE’78
Barbara Hunt received a bachelor’s in engineering. She is a retired CIA executive technical expert and program manager with more than 20 years’ experience in the fields of cyber, information and telecommunications technology and operations. Her last position in the intelligence community (2008–12) was as director of capabilities for tailored access operations at the National Security Agency (NSA’s offensive cyber mission). As a member of NSA/TAO’s senior leadership team, Hunt was responsible for end-to-end development and capabilities delivery for a large-scale computer network exploitation effort. She spent more than seven years as the program manager and senior technical targeting officer working to exploit a global telecommunications network. In 2012, Hunt founded Conceal (formerly NetAbstraction) to provide leading-edge, innovative, identity- and user location–protected access to the internet and cyber threat mitigation capabilities. Hunt is the inventor on five patents for the unique network architecture and design that allows Conceal to protect identity and location while also improving network performance when reaching the internet or the cloud.
Eric Christopher Young, BS’99
Eric Young earned a bachelor’s in math and computer science and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (2005). Since June 2023, he has served as the senior vice president of engineering at Snap Inc., where he oversees the engineering development, application security and platform trust and safety systems for the Snapchat messaging and video streaming platform. Before Snapchat, Young spent seven years as vice president of engineering leading Google’s foundational infrastructure. While there, he built a resource management control plane to optimally schedule all Google workloads across the global data centers to meet varying availability and latency goals. Before Google, Young was vice president of Amazon’s Pricing, Vendor Management, Supply Chain and Order Fulfillment Systems.
2025 Circle of Distinguished Friends Honoree
Philippe Fauchet, Dean Emeritus, Vanderbilt University School of Engineering
Philippe Fauchet received an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Faculté Polytechnique de Mons in his native Belgium in 1978. He received an M.S. in engineering from Brown University, and in 1984 he earned a Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University, where he taught for one year. In 2012, Fauchet became dean of the Vanderbilt School of Engineering. Under Fauchet’s leadership, the undergraduate engineering student population grew by 20 percent to over 1,400 undergraduate students, including the first entering class of majority women; and the graduate student population grew to over 800 students—an increase of nearly 50 percent. The faculty size increased by close to 50 percent, approaching 200 in all ranks; the number of endowed chairs doubled, the school’s endowment more than tripled, and sponsored research increased by over 25 percent. As a researcher, Fauchet is the author of more than 400 publications, has edited 18 books and has given over 100 invited or plenary presentations at international conferences. He is the author of 10 patents and in 2007 founded a successful manufacturing company. Fauchet is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Materials Research Society, IEEE, SPIE, Optica (formerly OSA) and APS.