Berryville Institute of Machine Learning

The Berryville Institute of Machine Learning (BIML) was founded in May 2019 in Berryville, Virginia, by Gary McGraw, Harold Figueroa, Victor Shepardson, and Richie Bonett. McGraw, who holds a dual PhD in Cognitive Science and Computer Science from Indiana University and spent 24 years as a software security expert and CTO at Cigital (acquired by Synopsys), formed BIML upon his retirement to apply the lessons of security engineering to the emerging field of machine learning. BIML operates as a small, distributed research group operating largely remotely, with its principal base in Clarke County, Virginia, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The institute is organized as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation in Virginia and received IRS nonprofit status after a year-long application process. BIML's research focuses on machine learning security — the systematic identification of security risks built into ML systems themselves, not the use of ML as a security tool. The organization approaches this through architectural risk analysis (ARA), a methodology drawn from software security engineering. Its foundational 2020 publication introduced the BIML-78, a catalogue of 78 security risks applicable to all ML process models. In January 2024, BIML published a follow-on architectural risk analysis of large language models, identifying 81 LLM-specific risks and flagging 10 as most critical. Beyond these flagship reports, BIML maintains an annotated bibliography of ML security literature (updated through at least 2025), publishes articles in peer-reviewed venues such as IEEE Computer, hosts the Silver Bullet Security Podcast, and contributes to the ML security community through conference presentations, tutorials, and its interactive online risk framework. BIML received a $150,000 grant from Open Philanthropy in January 2021 to support research and outreach. The institute remains active as of early 2026, with blog posts and conference appearances continuing through March 2026.