NSF - Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI)
SAC-PA: Towards Security Assured Cyberinfrastructure in Pennsylvania


Presentations in SAC-PA1 Workshops

Presentation List

SAC-PA Project PI

Bio: James Joshi is a professor of School of Information Sciences (SIS) at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his MS in Computer Science and PhD in Computer Engineering degrees from Purdue University in 1998 and 2003, respectively. He is an elected Fellow of the Society of Information Reuse and Integration (SIRI) and is an Senior member of IEEE and ACM. His research interests include Access Control Models, Security and Privacy of Distributed Systems including Social Networks and Cloud Computing, Trust Management and Information Survivability. He is a recipient of the NSF-CAREER award in 2006. He has served as Program or General Chair of several international conferences such as IEEE IRI, ACM SACMAT, IEEE/EAI CollaborateCom, etc. He has served or serves in Steering committee of ICME, IEEE IRI, ACM SACMAT and is the Steering Committee Chair of IEEE CIC. He is in editorial board of several journals and is the Editor in Chief or IEEE Transactions on Services Computing. He has published over 120 research papers as Journal / conference papers and book chapters. He co-founded and is the Director of the Laboratory of Education and Research in Security Assured Information Systems (LERSAIS), which is one of only about a dozen in the nation with five CNSS certifications, and has been leading the DoD Information Assurance Scholarship Program and the NSF-Federal Cyber Service Scholarship for Service programs. His leading efforts has resulted in the CAE and CAE-Research designation of LERSAIS jointly by NSA and the DHS.

SAC-PA Project Co-PI

Bio: James Marsteller is the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center Chief Information Security Officer. He has extensive security leadership experience with the TeraGrid and XSEDE security operations team and is a Co-PI for the Center For Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure, the NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. James also has served as the program chair for annual NSF Cybersecurity Summit for Large Facilities and Cyberinfrastructure since 2007. He has also served on the board of directors for the Pittsburgh chapter of the FBI Infragard program for many years. He holds a Master of Information Technology Management from Carnegie Mellon University and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional.

Bio: Scott is the Principal Security Engineer at REN-ISAC. His background is in network security, but has experience in just about all security operations. He joined REN-ISAC in 2015, and has been in Higher Education security for 10 years.

Bio: Rob Gardner is Research Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago and Senior Fellow in the Computation Institute. He directs the Midwest Tier2 Center for the ATLAS experiment at the CERN LHC and leads the integration program for the U.S. ATLAS Collaboration's Computing Facilities, which includes the Tier1 center at Brookhaven Lab and ten university Tier2 sites. He leads the User Support area of the Open Science Grid, is co-PI of VC3: Virtual Clusters for Community Computation, a DOE ASCR award to dynamically provision middlware over HPC centers, and is the PI of NSF CIF21 DIBBs: EI: SLATE and the Mobility of Capability.

SAC-PA Project Co-PI

Bio: James Marsteller is the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center Chief Information Security Officer. He has extensive security leadership experience with the TeraGrid and XSEDE security operations team and is a Co-PI for the Center For Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure, the NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. James also has served as the program chair for annual NSF Cybersecurity Summit for Large Facilities and Cyberinfrastructure since 2007. He has also served on the board of directors for the Pittsburgh chapter of the FBI Infragard program for many years. He holds a Master of Information Technology Management from Carnegie Mellon University and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional.

Bio: Network Performance Engineer, Pennsylvania State University. The current work experience: Evaluate, design, document, and train on network measurement applications, commercial, open-source or self developed. Provide measurement, monitoring, and reporting services to facilitate capacity planning, operational statistics, or financial analysis for both university network or researcher support. Provide network performance toolkit design and support functions for optimal data transfer rates.

Bio: Brian Pasquini is the Assistant Director of Information Security at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also currently serving as the University’s interim Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Brian is involved in all aspects of Pitt’s security program from Policy and Compliance, Security Operations, and Architecture. He is able to provide a unique perspective into the complete security lifecycle from his 19 years of experience in the security field working with many different verticals including education, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, finance, and pharmaceuticals and key science projects at the University.

Bio: Associate Professor and HPC Consultant, Center for Research Computing, University of Pittsburgh. Kim Wong is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and a HPC Consultant in the Center for Research Computing. He received his PhD in Chemical Physics from the University of Texas at Austin and did a couple of postdoctoral training, one on developing methods for describing chemical reactions for modeling enzyme catalysis and the other on developing methods for simulating nuclear quantum dynamics in molecular systems. His scientific interests are in the development and implementation of new methodologies for describing condensed-matter phenomena relevant to chemical, biological, materials, and energy applications. Since joining the University of Pittsburgh, his expanded scientific interests now include the development of agent-based models for describing the dynamics of infectious diseases under various environmental and/or public policy conditions. Kim has has over a decade of experience in systems administration, high-performance computing, parallel algorithms and libraries, scientific code development, and open source development frameworks. As a HPC Consultant in the Center for Research Computing, he is not only a systems administrator of the compute resources but also a user, being engaged in various domain science research projects.

Bio: Jeff Gennari is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in the CERT program. In his role at the SEI Mr. Gennari pursues work in software vulnerability analysis, secure coding techniques, program analysis, malicious code analysis, and reverse engineering. Mr. Gennari is also an adjunct professor in the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science where he instructs graduate students in software quality assurance and evaluation. Mr.Gennari holds a Master of Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a BS and MS in Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh.

Bio: David J. Hickton is the director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security. Hickton was nominated for United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania by President Barack Obama on May 20, 2010, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Aug. 5, 2010. He was sworn in as the District's 57th U.S. Attorney on Aug.12, 2010. Prior to becoming U.S. Attorney, Mr. Hickton engaged in the private practice of law, specifically in the areas of transportation, litigation, commercial and white collar crime. Mr. Hickton began his legal career serving as a Law Clerk for the Honorable United States District Judge Gustave Diamond from 1981 to 1983. For more than a decade, Mr. Hickton was an Adjunct Professor of Law at Duquesne University School of Law where he taught antitrust. Mr. Hickton is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, and a Fellow of the Academy of Trial Lawyers of Allegheny County. Mr. Hickton has been admitted before the United States Supreme Court, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania and several of the U.S. Circuit Courts. Previously, Mr. Hickton was involved in a wide range of community activities, and has long been an active supporter of and participant in organizations which benefit children and the arts. He is a past Executive Board Member of the Pittsburgh Public Theater, and served as its President. Mr. Hickton also was a longtime member of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, a non-profit organization that uses arts and culture to reinvigorate the Downtown. His nomination as United States Attorney marks Mr. Hickton's second Presidential appointment. From 1999 to 2001, Mr. Hickton served on the President's Advisory Committee on the Arts for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts at the request of then-President Bill Clinton. Mr. Hickton is a 1978 graduate of the Pennsylvania State University and a 1981 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

SAC-PA Project PI

Bio: James Joshi is a professor of School of Information Sciences (SIS) at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his MS in Computer Science and PhD in Computer Engineering degrees from Purdue University in 1998 and 2003, respectively. He is an elected Fellow of the Society of Information Reuse and Integration (SIRI) and is an Senior member of IEEE and ACM. His research interests include Access Control Models, Security and Privacy of Distributed Systems including Social Networks and Cloud Computing, Trust Management and Information Survivability. He is a recipient of the NSF-CAREER award in 2006. He has served as Program or General Chair of several international conferences such as IEEE IRI, ACM SACMAT, IEEE/EAI CollaborateCom, etc. He has served or serves in Steering committee of ICME, IEEE IRI, ACM SACMAT and is the Steering Committee Chair of IEEE CIC. He is in editorial board of several journals and is the Editor in Chief or IEEE Transactions on Services Computing. He has published over 120 research papers as Journal / conference papers and book chapters. He co-founded and is the Director of the Laboratory of Education and Research in Security Assured Information Systems (LERSAIS), which is one of only about a dozen in the nation with five CNSS certifications, and has been leading the DoD Information Assurance Scholarship Program and the NSF-Federal Cyber Service Scholarship for Service programs. His leading efforts has resulted in the CAE and CAE-Research designation of LERSAIS jointly by NSA and the DHS.

Bio: Prashant Krishnamurthy is an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a co-founder of the Laboratory of Education and Research in Security Assured Information Systems (LERSAIS), which has been designated as Center of Academic Excellence in information Education and Research (CAE + CAE-R) jointly by the United States NSA and DHS. His research interests include Wireless Network Security, Positioning and Localization, and Cryptography and Information Security. He has had research funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and The Army Research Office.

Bio: John Houston is vice president, information security and privacy, and associate counsel for the UPMC, a $11 billion health system headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa. (www.upmc.com). In this position, he has broad accountabilities across UPMC, including accountabilities related to privacy, information security and legal matters associated with the acquisition, licensing and use of technology. Mr. Houston is responsible for the UPMC startup “CloudConnect”, a company that offers cloud-based IT services to healthcare providers. He is also an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Bio: Scott Weinman is a Senior IT Security Analyst in the University of Pittsburgh’s IT Security department. Scott’s main duties include performing IT compliance reviews and providing researchers with guidance regarding securing study data. Scott has 17 years of experience implementing and reviewing finance and information technology controls in a variety of industries including healthcare and banking. Scott graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in Business Administration and from Duquesne University with a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) and a Masters in Information Systems. Scott is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), and Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

Bio: Chris Seiders is a security analyst with the University of Pittsburgh’s Computing Services and Systems Development department. He has been with the University for 4 years focusing on security policy, risk management, and compliance. Chris is an ancillary reviewer on the PITT Institutional review board (IRB) performing data security reviews of IRB protocol submissions. Prior to working for the University, Chris worked for the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) for 14 years as the network security manager.

Bio: Steve is the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and Director of Strategic Operations for the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA). As CTO, he oversees all IT and Security requirements for the organization. As the Director of Strategic Operations, he identifies, creates and oversees any strategic operations that overlap programs within NCFTA. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Pittsburgh where he teaches on cyber crime and cyber policy at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Prior to joining NCFTA, he spent over 3 years with the Department of Homeland Security, first with the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT). He was then promoted to be the Director for Analysis for the newly established National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC).

Steve is also a 20 year veteran. Prior to retiring from the Air Force, he served as a military faculty member at the National Defense University’s iCollege where he taught various cybersecurity courses to information security leaders from across the federal government as well as international partners; all while managing an information assurance lab, where he worked with various technologies such as biometrics, Voice over IP (VoIP), wireless vulnerabilities, industrial control systems and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, to include providing hands-on demonstrations for students.

Bio: Special Agent Abigail Smith, is currently working out of the Pittsburgh Division. SA Smith joined the Bureau in 2009, and has been an agent since 2011. SA Smith began working Cyber cases in 2012 in the New York Division before relocating to Pittsburgh in late 2016.

Bio: Intelligence Analyst Andrew Czyzewski is currently working out of the Pittsburgh Division. IA Czyzewski joined the Bureau in 2004. From 2004 to 2006 IA Czyzewski worked at FBI Head Quarters in the Cyber Division, before relocating to Pittsburgh where he has continued to work Cyber matters.

Bio: Tony Carra is a Service Owner with the Computing Services and Systems Development team at the University of Pittsburgh. Tony works closely in supporting customers, architects, developers, and vendors on the various Identify Management services used at the University.

Bio: Balaji Palanisamy is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests include data privacy, privacy-preserving system design and performance optimization in Distributed Systems and Cloud Computing. At University of Pittsburgh, he co-directs research in the Laboratory of Research and Education on Security Assured Information Systems (LERSAIS), which is one of the first group of NSA/DHS designated Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education and Research (CAE CAE-R). He is a recipient of the Best Paper Award in the 15th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing IEEE/ACM CCGrid 2015 and the Best Paper Award in the 5th International Conference on Cloud Computing, IEEE CLOUD 2012. Prior to joining University of Pittsburgh, he obtained the MS and PhD degrees in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2009 and 2013 respectively. Since 2016, he has been serving as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, IEEE TSC journal and currently serves as the chair of the IEEE Communications Society for the Pittsburgh Chapter.

Bio: David Tipper is a Professor in the School of Computing and Information at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a graduate of the University of Arizona (PhD Electrical Engineering, MS Systems Engineering) and Virginia Tech (BS in Electrical Engineering). At Pitt, Tipper teaches courses on communication systems, wireless networks, network performance, network design, and infrastructure protection. Tipper’s research has been supported by grants from various government and corporate sources such as NSF, DARPA, NIST, IBM, ARO, and AT&T. His current research interests are resilient network design, performance analysis techniques, and information assurance. Recent professional activities include serving as co-guest editor of a special issue on Advances in Network Planning which appeared in IEEE Communications Magazine – January and February of 2014, and of the journal Telecommunication Systems on Reliable Networks Design and Modeling which appeared February, 2013. He is the co-author of the textbook The Physical Layer of Communication Systems, which was published by Artech House in 2006. Also, he is the co-editor and a contributor to Information Assurance: Dependability and Security in Networked Systems, which was published by Morgan Kaufmann in 2008.

Bio: Michael Spring is an Associate Professor of Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Supported by NSF, he has worked on models and principles for design of human-computer interaction, and visualization and virtual information spaces, and cybersecurity. With support from NCI, NIH, NIMH, Medicare and the Veterans Administration, he has developed web sites to support people with schizophrenia, and various forms of cancer as well as caregivers for individuals with cancer and traumatic brain injury. Current research efforts involve ontology mapping for semantic web applications, data mining of social web applications, secure location based services, and the automated development of secure websites to support medical research.