**Ryan Wails** is a product-focused developer at Syntheos, specializing in computer security, privacy-preserving technologies, and machine learning. With a strong background in applied cybersecurity research, Ryan previously served as a computer scientist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, focusing on formal methods and secure communication techniques. Earlier, at Penn State’s Applied Research Laboratory, he contributed to innovative research in network-traffic analysis and covert-channel detection, earning multiple best-paper and best-practical awards. Ryan is currently an NSF Graduate Research Fellow completing his PhD in Computer Science at Georgetown University, where his research advances privacy-preserving machine-learning systems. He holds an MS in Computer Science from Georgetown, along with dual BS degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from Penn State, solidifying a deep foundation in rigorous computational methods that directly enhance Syntheos’s high-stakes decision intelligence solutions.