Events
Welcome Dr. Gail-Joon Ahn to Join ASU
Dr. Ahn joined the ASU and the IA Center, starting July 1st, 2008. He has authored more than 90 refereed research papers. Prior to ASU, he was an Associate Professor of College of Computing and Informatics and Founding Director of the Center for Digital Identity and Cyber Defense Research at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His principal research and teaching interests are in information and systems security, including vulnerability and risk management, authentication and access control, security architecture for distributed systems, formal models for computer security, and cyber crime analysis. His research has been supported by National Science Foundation, National Institute of Justice, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Bank of America, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is a recipient of Department of Energy Career Award and the Educator of the Year Award from the Federal Information Systems Security Educators' Association (FISSEA).
He has been very active in international conference program committees and other professional society activities. He has served as a guest editor of ACM Transactions on Information and System Security in 2007. Currently, he serves as an information director of ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control (SIGSAC) and a steering committee chair of ACM Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies (SACMAT).
Workshop on Information Assurance Research and Education was held on April 17, 2008 in Tempe
The center has held its first workshop on information assurance research and education on April 17, 2008 in Tempe. There were more than 40 participants from government agencies, local industry, academia, and ASU faculty and students. The objective of this workshop is to promote research and educational activities in information assurance at ASU. The focus is on emerging technologies to address important IA issues, as well as innovative educational and training programs for IA education. This workshop included invited talks, a panel discussion session and a poster session.
Dean Deirdre Meidrum gave welcome remarks and introduced the major activities and plans of I.A. Fulton School of Engineering at the beginning of the workshop. Director Sethuraman Panchanathan of the School of Computing and Informatics (SCI) gave a summary of plans for SCI at the beginning of the afternoon session.
In the morning session, after Professor Stephen Yau gave an introduction of the ASU IA Center activities, five invited speakers discussed various aspects of information assurance. Dr. David Du (Director of Computer and Network Systems and Cyber Trust Programs, National Science Foundation) gave an overview of NSF Cyber Trust Program. Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham (Director of Cyber Security Research Center, University of Texas at Dallas) introduced their research results on using data mining techniques for cyber security applications. Dr. Gail-Joon Ahn (Director of Center for Digital Identity and Cyber Defense Research, University of North Carolina, Charlotte and an incoming faculty member to the ASU IA Center and SCI) discussed their research on access and identity management. Dr. Partha Dasgupta discussed approaches to ensuring safe application execution on insecure platforms. Finally, Dr. Doug Hill (Information Assurance Division, General Dynamics) introduced the information assurance practices in General Dynamics C4 Systems.
In the afternoon session, after Director Panchanathan’s remarks, a very lively panel session took place on future trends of IA research and education, especially on IA education and effective improvement of the IA manpower in industry. Our curriculum and assistance from industry on the capstone courses in the IA area were also discussed. A poster session consisting of 13 posters on recent and current IA research projects at ASU was held at the end of the workshop. The workshop completed around 4:30 p.m. The next such workshop will be expanded and held in Spring, 2009.
Senior receives Department of Defense scholarship
Devon O'Brien, a Computer Systems Engineering senior in the School of Computing and Informatics, has been selected as one of the 50 recipients of the Department of Defense Scholarship Recipient program. The program is sponsored by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information and Integration and is administered by the National Security Agency. As part of the award, Devon will intern at the Department of Defense (DoD). Devon, who became interested in information assurance after taking a Cryptography class, states "this scholarship will help provide stability in my further education as well as ensuring a job when I graduate and enter the workforce. I am very honored to have been chosen for this scholarship, and am excited to see where this takes me in both my academic endeavors and in my future career."
"We are very pleased that Devon has been awarded this scholarship after the first year ASU's Information Assurance Center was certified as a national Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education," said Dr. Stephen Yau, Director of the Information Assurance Center.
As information assurance becomes more and more critical, the Information Assurance Center anticipates more financial support will be available for students interested in being specialized in this field. Interested students should contact the academic advisors in the School of Computing and Informatics to discuss future financial aid as well as how to enroll in the Information Assurance Concentration programs.