Dr. Toni Farley
AI Innovator · Educator · Technology Leader

Bridging engineering expertise with organizational leadership.

Technology leader and systems architect with 20+ years driving high-impact initiatives across industry, federally funded research, and academia — translating complex technical strategy into organizational action.

Chandler, AZ toni.farley@gmail.com LinkedIn
Bio

Technology leader, AI innovator, and systems architect with a PhD in Computer Science from Arizona State University and 20+ years driving high-impact initiatives across industry, federally funded research, and academia. Track record of building and directing engineering, project, and product teams, leading R&D programs from concept to delivery, and architecting production systems that generate measurable business outcomes.

Adept at translating complex technical strategy into organizational action — securing grant funding, managing IP portfolios, reducing infrastructure costs, and delivering enterprise-grade platforms. Direct experience shipping end-to-end at every layer: serverless big-data architectures on AWS and GCP, Python/JavaScript full-stack applications, ML platforms (PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn), NLP pipelines, and production APIs sustaining 99%+ uptime with 70% latency improvements and 90% cloud cost reduction on a DoD program.

Founder of tonia.ai, an open AI educational platform spanning foundational programming and theory through applied machine learning and emerging fields like quantum. Former Staff Engineer at TargetSmart and Principal Investigator on Army SBIR and NSF-funded research. Deep security background from early BGP research at AT&T Labs and ASU's Information and Systems Assurance Lab — author of one of the most-cited BGP security surveys in the field.

Professor of AI and Adjunct Faculty teaching across the full CS and AI curriculum at the doctoral, graduate, and undergraduate levels — Enterprise AI, neural networks, NLP, data science, quantum cryptography, cloud development, secure coding, and programming in Python, Java, C++, C#, and JavaScript. 20+ peer-reviewed publications spanning network reliability, intrusion detection, QoS, and biomedical informatics. Equally fluent in cross-functional leadership and hands-on engineering across AI/ML, cloud infrastructure, data, and security.

The leader you want when strategy, delivery, and deep technical fluency need to live in the same person.

Work

Selected AI/Tech Projects

Generative AI for Leaders

Generative AI for Leaders

A practical guide to implementing and managing AI solutions in your organization.

View on Udemy
tonia.ai

Tonia AI

Open lecture notes spanning the AI and computer science stack — from foundational programming and theory to applied machine learning and quantum.

Visit tonia.ai
Brainwave Editor

Brainwave Editor

A pre-generative-AI writing editor designed to enhance your work without altering your words — built before LLMs reshaped the category.

Visit brainwave.one
AWS ML Infrastructure
AWS ML training and serving infrastructure
GCP ML Infrastructure
GCP ML training and serving infrastructure
Side

Ventures & Pursuits

XYZ Galaxy Experiences

XYZ Galaxy Experiences

Robotic caricature entertainment for weddings, corporate activations, galas, and private celebrations.

Visit xyzgalaxy.com
Tech Tuesday

Tech Tuesday

A revival of one of the Valley's original grassroots tech communities — built on the belief that the best conversations happen in person.

Website Meetup Group
Mars None

Mars None

A darkly comedic tale of the first Mars landing — gone wrong.

Visit marsnone.com
Prevent

Prevent

A science fiction series pilot exploring an unconventional storytelling format built for streaming. Currently in development.

Inquire
Research

Publications

Network Security & BGP
  • Highly-cited BGP security survey with AT&T Labs
  • Cyberattack detection and classification
Systems Reliability & Performance
  • Network reliability and resilience
  • QoS optimization for web servers and routers
  • Job scheduling and performance research
Biomedical Informatics
  • BioIntelligence Framework (JAMIA)
  • Genomic analysis on pediatric leukemia
Most Cited Works
  • Survey of BGP Security Issues and Solutions (Proc. IEEE)
  • The BioIntelligence Framework (JAMIA)
  • Multiterminal Network Resilience (Networks)
Full List
  1. Wai D, Arceci R, et al. "Abstract 5583: Integrative genomic analyses on pediatric acute myeloid leukemia," Cancer Research 74(19 Supplement):5583, September 2014.
  2. Farley T, Kiefer J, Von Hoff D, Trent JM, Colbourn C, Mousses S. "The BioIntelligence Framework: a new computational platform for biomedical knowledge computing," JAMIA, August 2012, doi: 10.1136/amiajnl-2011-000646.
  3. Butler K, Farley T, McDaniel P, Rexford J. "A Survey of BGP Security Issues and Solutions," Proceedings of the IEEE, 98:1, 2010, pp. 100–122.
  4. Farley T, Colbourn C. "Multiterminal Measures for Network Reliability and Resilience," Design of Reliability Communication Networks, Oct 2009, pp. 107–114.
  5. Farley T, Colbourn C. "Multi-Terminal Network Connectedness on Series-Parallel Networks," Discrete Mathematics, Algorithms and Applications, 1:2, 2009, pp. 253–265.
  6. Ye N, Li X, Farley T, Xu X. "Job Scheduling Methods for Reducing Waiting Time Variance," Computers and Operations Research, 34:10, October 2007, pp. 3069–3083.
  7. Farley T, Colbourn C. "Multiterminal Resilience for Series-Parallel Networks," Networks, 50:2, September 2007, pp. 164–172.
  8. Ye N, Lai Y-C, Farley T. "Quality of Service Assurance for Dependable Information Infrastructure," Information Security Research, Wiley, Ch. 1.2.1, pp. 53–79, 2007.
  9. Ye N, Farley T, Li X, Bashettihalli H. "Batch Scheduled Admission Control for Computer and Network Systems," Information, Knowledge, Systems Management, 5:4, 2006, pp. 211–226.
  10. Ye N, Farley T, Lakshminarasimhan D. "An Attack-Norm Separation Approach for Detecting Cyber Attacks," Information Systems Frontiers, 8:3, July 2006, pp. 163–177.
  11. Ye N, Farley T. "Information Sharing and Control in Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Supply Networks," Int'l Journal of Modelling and Simulation, 26:2, 2006.
  12. Farley T, Joseph J. "Intrusion Detection," Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security, Springer, 2005.
  13. Ye N, Newman C, Farley T. "A System-Fault-Risk Framework for Cyber Attack Classification and Profiling," Information, Knowledge, Systems Management, 5:2, 2005–2006, pp. 135–151.
  14. Ye N, Farley T. "A Scientific Approach to Cyberattack Detection," IEEE Computer, 38:11, November 2005, pp. 55–61.
  15. Ye N, Yang Z, Lai Y-C, Farley T. "Enhancing router QoS through job scheduling with weighted shortest processing time-adjusted," Computers and Operations Research, 32:9, Sept 2005, pp. 2255–2269.
  16. Ye N, Gel ES, Li X, Farley T, Lai Y-C. "Web server QoS models: applying scheduling rules from production planning," Computers and Operations Research, 32:5, May 2005, pp. 1147–1164.
  17. Ye N, Harish B, Farley T. "Attack Profiles to Derive Data Observations, Features, and Characteristics of Cyber Attacks," Information, Knowledge, Systems Management, 5:1, Jan 2005, pp. 23–47.
  18. Butler K, Farley T, McDaniel P. "A Survey of BGP Security Issues and Solutions," Technical Report TD-5UGJ33, AT&T Labs — Research, Florham Park, NJ, February 2004.
  19. Ye N, Farley T, Aswath D. "Data Measures and Collection Points to Detect Traffic Condition Changes on Large-Scale Computer Networks," IKSM, 4:4, Dec 2004, pp. 215–224.
  20. Chen Y, Farley T, Ye N. "QoS Requirements of Network Applications on the Internet," IKSM, 4:1, Jan 2004, pp. 55–76.
  21. Ye N, Lai Y-C, Farley T. "Dependable Information Infrastructures as Complex Adaptive Systems," Systems Engineering, 6:4, 2003, pp. 225–237.
  22. Ye N, Li X, Farley T. "A data mining technique for discovering distinct patterns of hand signs," Ergonomics, 46(1–3), 2003, pp. 188–196.
  23. Ye N, Chen Y, Farley T. "QoS Requirements of Multimedia Data on Computer Networks," Proc. 2nd Int'l Conf on Active Media Technology, 2003, pp. 183–189.
Teaching

Course Development & Teaching

Graduate Courses
  • AI Driven Optimization Techniques
  • Enterprise AI for Business Strategies
  • Business Use Cases for AI
  • AI Governance and Ethics
  • Neural Networks and Deep Learning
  • Natural Language Processing
  • Predictive Analytics
  • Data Science with Python
  • Advanced Theoretical Computer Science
  • Quantum Cryptography
  • Cognitive Computing and Neuroscience
Undergraduate Courses
  • Cloud Application Development with GCP
  • Introduction to Theoretical Computer Science
  • Principles of Programming Languages
  • Programming with Python, Java, C++, C#
  • Software Testing & Quality Assurance
  • Secure Coding with C/C++
  • Database Systems & Programming Fundamentals
  • Application Development: Frontend
  • Application Development: Backend
  • Business Application Programming with Java
  • Web Development with ASP.NET
  • Introduction to Data Science
  • Information and Data Management
  • Mathematical Foundations of Data Science
  • Computer Literacy
  • Technology and Society
  • Computer Networks
Udemy Courses