Cybersecurity Research Area

Dr. Alex V Mbaziira has three lines of research namely: the first line of research is about detecting deception and cyber-crime where I build artificial intelligence models using computational linguistic processes and psycholinguistic feature engineering to detect cyber-crime in form of scams, fake reviews, fraud, and disinformation. My second line of research is an applied research project funded by US military which is investigating how red-team processes can be made more efficient with emerging technology. In the last of line of research, is exploring how we can secure medical supply chains for wearable medical devices using lightweight and post-quantum cryptography.

Dr. Andy Hall’s research falls within the multidisciplinary fields of operations research, data science and cybersecurity education and I specialize in applying advanced analytic techniques to solving complex decision problems. I am an expert in workforce planning and military operations research. My research in cybersecurity education looks at innovative methods to grow, teach and mentor the next generation of security researchers, as well how they will be incorporated into the world of work. I am examining research methods in cybersecurity and conducting research that incorporates bootstrapping and advanced statistical methods to evaluate thematic saturation in qualitative research.

Dr Diane Murphy is a Distinguished Professor known for her research as well as her teaching and community service. She is currently the Principal Investigator (PI) on several research grants in the cybersecurity field including following from the National Science Foundation (NSF): the CyberCorps Scholarship for Service grant and the CyberTeach grant. Much of her research is in workforce development, including educational pathways in both cybersecurity and, more recently, in artificial intelligence. She is particularly interested in researching barriers to diversity (gender and ethnicity). Her interests also include trustworthy AI and the detection/ minimization of bias in AI.

Dr. Michelle Liu’s research mainly concerns dynamic and complex relations between emerging technologies and human decision-making. Her scholarly work focuses on three areas: (1) how emerging technologies (e.g., telehealth) would interact with, or co-evolve with users, organization security posture, and privacy decision making; (2) how to address questions about the impact, governance, ethics, and accountability of AI-based systems; and (3) how to innovate STEM education to increase workforce diversity and readiness. She has been actively involved in student/faculty collaborative research activities which culminate in conference presentations and peer-reviewed journal publications.

Dr. Natalia Bell’s research interest is focused on cybersecurity in nonprofits and SMEs; cybersecurity readiness during disasters, and cybersecurity awareness. Dr. Bell also works on academic-related research covering workforce readiness, digital badges for academic milestones, and academic resilience during uncertainty. Dr. Bell is also interested in exploring new research areas focus on new topics such as AI and cybersecurity in AI, and cyber diplomacy. Dr. Bell also works on the development of AI curriculum.

Dr. Alvaro Cintas-Canto’s research interests are in hardware security, post-quantum cryptography, cryptographic engineering, and high-performance embedded systems design. His research consists in identifying vulnerabilities in different cryptosystems, with a special focus on post-quantum cryptography, and implementing different security measures on hardware platforms such as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA). This is done to benchmark the overheads induced by the proposed approaches and to suit them into deeply constrained embedded systems common today throughout the military, government, and business.

Dr. Felix Olowononi’s overarching research goal is to develop data-driven solutions to enhance security of intelligent networked systems against adversarial attacks. My recent research has practical applications in fields like connected vehicles and other smart systems where the increased dependence on wireless networks to enhance intelligence has widened the attack surface. I am also investigating methods to leverage emerging technologies to enhance proactive cyber threat intelligence through data-driven malware analysis and reverse engineering techniques. My research has been presented in flagship conferences of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Dr. Donna Schaeffer’s research agenda focuses on three topics: the ethical and social implications of artificial intelligence and machine learning; incorporating cybersecurity principles and education into disciplines across the curriculum, e.g., mathematics, public health, tourism, and public affairs; and cybersecurity management and policy on the organizational, national, and international levels. Dr. Schaeffer has overseen numerous dissertations and published taxonomies for telecommunications technologies and ethical codes for citizen science and crowd-sourced engineering projects.

Dr. Susan Conrad’s key research area is data privacy and protecting personal identifiable information. With Internet of Things (IOT) and surveillance devices tracking our every movement, developing strategies to protect data is not simply about keeping data safe but a human rights issue impacting personal freedom. Questions about data consent, usage and ownership will dictate how personal data can be used and collected. Dr. Conrad is interested in researching how data privacy safeguards can be integrated into new products for the safeguarding of personal data. In addition to privacy, Dr. Conrad researches topics about workforce readiness and trends in the technology marketplace.