Brian LaRose

Biography

Brian LaRose is an Assistant Professor of Practice in Software Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he teaches in the Department of Applied Engineering. He joined the faculty in Fall 2025 after 3 decades in senior roles with Hewlett-Packard, EMC/Dell, VMware, and TPC Consulting.

Throughout his career, Brian worked with clients across the consulting, financial services, retail, travel, manufacturing, and technology sectors. His focus has been on building resilient and scalable architectures, enabling cloud transformation, DevOps, and managing complex IT ecosystems.  Brian’s consultative approach and technical leadership will bring deep expertise in enterprise infrastructure, hybrid cloud systems, and software into the classroom.

Education

• MS, Computer Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
• BS, Computer Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Research

While his role emphasizes teaching, LaRose’s professional interests span infrastructure engineering, IT automation, lifecycle management, systems integration, and DevOps. He is especially focused on preparing students for the rapidly changing demands of enterprises and building critical thinking, teamwork, engineering disciplines and problem solving with UT applied engineering graduates.

Teaching Areas of Interest

LaRose teaches applied software and infrastructure topics, with a strong focus on current industry practices and emerging technologies. His courses include:

• Debugging and Troubleshooting Complex systems
• Cloud Computing
• IT Automation
• IoT Sensors and Controllers
• Enterprise IT Service Management

LaRose is committed to active learning, hands-on experiences and student engagement, creating an environment where future engineers can gain experience and develop critical thinking skills that translate directly into the workplace.

Industry Engagement

LaRose will leverage his vast network of high-tech connections to bring industry expertise into the classroom, presenting students with real world perspectives and problems, bringing guest lecturers to provide valuable context to the technology they are studying.  

LaRose also previously served for 12 years on UT’s Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Industrial Advisory Board, helping review and align academic programs with evolving industry needs. He has presented numerous technical sessions at industry conferences such as VMworld, LinuxWorld, and HPE Discover, and continues to advise on trends in infrastructure, cloud computing, automation, and systems integration.