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Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Meet our dedicated

Contributors

David Aguilar

David Aguilar previously served as Acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). As Acting Commissioner, he oversaw our nation’s largest federal law enforcement agency, a workforce of over 60,000 agents, officers, and other personnel and a budget of more than 12 Billion dollars. Prior to leading CBP, Mr. Aguilar was appointed by President George W. Bush as the National Chief of the United States Border Patrol. Mr. Aguilar served as Chief of the Tucson Sector and in various leadership positions within the U.S. Border Patrol during his 35-year Federal law enforcement career.

Paul Benda

Paul Benda is the Senior Vice President, Risk and Cybersecurity Policy at the American Bankers Association. Mr. Benda utilizes his background as the former Director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA) where he was the head of Research and Development (R&D) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and as a Program Manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to support clients in expanding their work with the Federal Government’s R&D enterprise and to help them position technologies for transition in the Government’s Homeland Security to commercial markets. He has helped clients develop strategic approaches for commercial and government opportunities as well as tactical assistance with proposals that has enabled clients to increase their capture efficiency and revenue generation. Mr. Benda also leads the SAFETY Act practice at GSIS. He has successfully helped clients gain approval of SAFETY Act applications by leveraging his security and R&D experience as the former DHS decision authority on SAFETY Act applications. During his tenure at DHS, he approved nearly half of all current SAFETY Act awards, including those for the New York Yankees, Willis Tower and New York Stock Exchange. His experience also includes serving as the Acting Deputy Under Secretary and Chief of Staff of S&T, as well positions in the Department of Defense where he worked at the Pentagon Force Protection Agency and oversaw the design, implementation, testing, and commissioning of all security systems at the Pentagon Reservation. Mr. Benda started his career as an Active Duty U.S. Air Force officer at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, NY and transitioned from military life to the private sector as a consultant for Booz Allen for five years before returning to government service.

Gary Berman

Gary is the CEO of Cyberman Security and refers to himself as, “the most reluctant cyber security person in the world” given that his 25-year career has been as a thought leader in marketing communications in general and in market segmentation in particular. Until recently, he knew very little about technology and even less about cyber security, but everything about the devastating effects of being the CEO of a company that was victimized by a persistent series of insider attacks. Gary has decided to pivot from being a victim to becoming an advocate to help keep others from suffering the life-altering consequences of being hacked. The vehicle is a super hero comic and animated platform entitled, “The CyberHero Adventures: Defenders of the Digital Universe”. Gary began his career as the Founder & CEO of Market Segment Research, a leading firm specializing in the demassification of American marketing. Clients incuded AT&T, Best Buy, Ford, General Motors, P&G, The White House and many other Fortune 500 firms. Gary sold a portion of his company to the WPP Group based out of London. Gary also was the Executive Director of The Anthem Project, a real estate project to help America’s warriors to reintegrate into civil society. He also co-founded Grasp Learning, an after-school tutoring program

Chris Bown

Chris Bown is a regular contributor to Homeland Security Today covering the latest think tank, journal, and news related to terrorism and security. He originally trained as a journalist on real estate and architecture news publications, and for many years edited the publications of international real estate event MIPIM. He is a regular contributor to London financial daily newspaper City AM, and curates daily updates at investment newsletter Hotel Analyst.

Chuck Brooks

Chuck Brooks, President of Brooks Consulting International, is a globally recognized thought leader and subject matter expert Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies. He is Adjunct Faculty at Georgetown University in the Cyber Risk Management and Applied Intelligence programs. During his career, Chuck received two Presidential Appointments, and served an executive for several leading public companies. LinkedIn named Chuck as one of “The Top 5 Tech People to Follow on LinkedIn.” He was named by Thompson Reuters as a “Top 50 Global Influencer in Risk, Compliance,” and by IFSEC as the “#2 Global Cybersecurity Influencer.” He is also a Visiting Editor of Homeland Security Today.

Paul Cobaugh

Mr. Paul Cobaugh retired from the US Army as a Warrant Officer after a distinguished career in the US Special Operations CT community, primarily focused on mitigating adversarial influence and advancing US objectives by way of influence. Throughout his career he has focused on the centrality of influence in modern conflict whether it be from extremist organisations or state actors employing influence against the US and our Allies. Post military career he was offered and accepted the position of Vice President at Narrative Strategies, a US based Think-Do Tank which specializes in the non-kinetic aspects of conflict. He has also co-authored, Soft Power on Hard Problems, Hamilton Publishing, 2017 and Introduction to Narrative Warfare: A Primer and Study Guide, Amazon, 2018

Matthew Crosston

Dr. Matthew Crosston is Senior Faculty for the Doctoral Programs in Global Security and Strategic Intelligence at the American Military University. He has published top-tier research that has impacted real world decision-making in the U.S. and beyond. His established work in cyber has made required reading lists at US CYBERCOM and Israel’s Mossad; the piece ‘Soft Spying’ is required reading at the US Army War College; and ‘Nemesis’ is highlighted on the journal of record for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has published over 100 analytical editorials and commissioned opinion pieces that represent the full spectrum of global security and they have been translated into Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian, Hebrew, Spanish, Turkish, Farsi, Greek, and Uzbek. He also serves as Vice Chairman at ModernDiplomacy.eu, where his passion for mentoring has resulted in more than 60 young Global South scholars and practitioners becoming published authors. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, Israel; Senior Advisor for the Research Institute for European and American Studies in Athens, Greece; Senior Fellow at the China Eurasia Council for Political and Strategic Research in Nanjing, China; and was the first American invited to conduct a political analysis blog for the Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow, Russia. He has a BA from Colgate University; MA from the University of London; PhD from Brown University; and completing a Post-Doc at the University of Toronto.

Noor Dahri

Noor Dahri is the founder and Executive Director of ITCT. He was born and raised in Pakistan. Mr Dahri is currently studying MSc in Terrorism, Security and Policing from Leicester University. He has studied Forensics and Criminal Psychology from Oxford – UK, Counter Terrorism from the University of Maryland – U.S.A and also studied Counter Terrorism from International Institute for Counter Terrorism ICT- Israel. He is an independent researcher in Counter Islamist Terrorism and Islamist Extremism. Mr. Dahri has written many research articles and journals on the hot issues such as Counter Terrorism, Violent Extremism, De-Radicalisation and Israel-Palestine issues which have been published in various newspapers and CT organisations. He has attended many events, conferences on the threat of Counter Terrorism. Noor is a Middle East Analyst at The Great Middle East and a regular contributor at the Times of Israel (Israel) and The Daily Times (Pak). He has appeared on numerous TV and Radio shows for his interviews. Noor had been invited to deliver his speeches at the International Institute for Counter Terrorism -ICT in Israel on the topic of “From Daw’ah To Jihad: Breaking the Radicalization and Violent Cycle”. Mr. Dahri is a fellow member of the Intelligence Community USA and a member of a UK’s security think tank Henry Jackson Society. He regularly attends discussion-based events in the House of Commons and the House of Lords (UK Parliaments). He has visited many countries for his research work. Mr Dahri has also worked with the London police department for the last 7 years and received a “Life Achievement Award Certificate” by Lord Frank Judd at The House of Lords- UK. He has recently authored two books called “Global Jihad, Islamic Radicalisation and Counter Strategy” and “Terra Nullius: The Rebirth of a Land Without Peace” which were published from India in 2019. Noor is currently working on his third book on the subject of “Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism” where he would counter the Islamist’s narratives from the theology of Islam.

Michael Echols

Michael A. Echols is a senior cybersecurity executive and critical infrastructure protection strategist working with senior corporate leaders and government officials to make the nation more resilient. He is leading a revolution to stand-up and support Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations (ISAO). As such, Mr. Echols leads a global effort to harmonize cyber threat information sharing. Previously, Mr. Echols managed cyber resiliency programs for the Department of Homeland Security while assisting in the advancement of risk reduction. As the point person for the rollout of President Obama's EO 13691, he developed a national program for ISAOs. At DHS, Mr. Echols chaired activities optimizing national programs, cybersecurity strategy, interagency coordination, public safety and counterterrorism across federal agencies and the private sector. Mr. Echols Chaired the Communications Sector, IT Sector and managed the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. Mr. Echols' leadership has resulted in value creation and models for Government and Industry partnerships across the Communications, IT, and other critical sectors. He has aligned risk management strategies between operations, policy, and tactical to support the evolving hazards to the nation. He plays a key role in developing the programmatics, and manages the broad array of Presidential advisory, sector partnership initiatives, policy issuances, congressional testimony and technology assessments required to increase the return on investment of Government / Industry cyber efforts. Prior to joining the Government as a Federal employee, Mr. Echols advised federal officials and served DHS as a consultant on matters related to outreach, threat information management, protection of national networks, national security, emergency communications, and disaster management.

Lori Gordon

Lori W. Gordon is a technology strategist in national and homeland security, cybersecurity, and infrastructure risk and resilience at The Aerospace Corporation, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC). She is an advisor to ISO, ANSI, and NIST technical working groups and is a visiting fellow at the National Security Institute. Lori has also served on curriculum advisory boards on cybersecurity and infrastructure security, law and government, and resilient design. She has a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Ken Kartsen

Ken Kartsen is Vice President of Public Sector Sales for McAfee. In this position he oversees business development for the public sector. Kartsen has been responsible for public sector sales and service providers at leading technology companies for over 17 years, primarily in the security industry.

Bill Lawrence

Bill Lawrence currently serves as the director of the E-ISAC. Bill began at NERC in July 2012 as the Manager of Critical Infrastructure Protection Awareness. Prior to joining NERC, he was the Deputy Director, Character Development & Training Division, at the United States Naval Academy, where he also taught courses in Ethics and Cyber Security. Bill flew F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18F Super Hornets for the Navy, and has a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from the US Naval Academy. He has a Masters degree in International Relations from Auburn Montgomery, and a Master of Military Operational Art and Science from the Air Command and Staff College. Bill also holds a Project Management Professional certification.

Kevin Learned

Kevin Learned is a Partner with the law firm of McMahon, Welch and Learned, PLLC. Kevin has nearly twenty years of experience as a corporate and M&A attorney and has extensive experience working with emerging growth companies, particularly information technology and other professional service providers in both the commercial and federal spaces. Kevin’s practice focuses on advising clients on general corporate and securities matters, including company formation and governance, buy-sell agreements, operating and stockholder agreements, mergers and acquisitions, private offerings of debt and equity securities (including friends and family, angel, venture capital and private equity investments), corporate divorces and other reorganizations, joint ventures, small business certifications (including 8(a), SDVO, WOSB, HUB Zone and MBE/DBE certifications), executive employment and equity matters, deferred compensation plans, franchise agreements, trademarks, and other commercial contracts and agreements.

Robert Lewin

After retiring from government service as the Director of the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management and the Fire Chief for CAL FIRE/San Luis Obispo County Fire, Robert Lewin is now a Principal at Resolute Associates LLC providing a range of emergency management consulting including numerous efforts in support of the COVID-19 emergency. Lewin is a Type 1 Incident Commander and served many years on Incident Management Teams. He has held command positions both in the field and in Emergency Operations Centers (EOC) on some of California’s most complex incidents including fires, floods, earthquakes, human and animal diseases, and on special assignments. Most recently he led the actions of the EOC during the Thomas Fire and resulting Montecito Debris Flow. Robert is a Cal Poly graduate in Political Science, an Allan Hancock College graduate in Fire Science and completed the Executive Leadership Program at the Naval Post Graduate School. He is a Certified Emergency Manager (CEM).

Robert Liscouski

Mr. Liscouski was appointed by President George W. Bush as the first Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was founded in 2003 and served in that position until 2005. Mr. Liscouski is Managing Partner and co-founder of Convergent Risk Group LLC, an innovative enterprise risk management and cyber security firm focused on protecting companies, state & local governments, international clients and NGOs by providing complete cyber risk mitigation and transfer solutions. Mr. Liscouski is a proven security professional and entrepreneur with over 30 years of senior level security operational and company leadership experience.

Amy McDougal

Amy McDougal is the Founder and President of CLEAResources, LLC. Most recently, Amy served as General Counsel and Vice President of Compliance and Ethics Services at Watermark, LLC. Previously, Amy was a Special Assistant United States Attorney and an Air Force Judge Advocate, attaining the rank of Major, before beginning her civilian career as in-house employment law and compliance counsel to a large and diverse government contractor. Amy has a passion for helping organizations do right by their shareholders, employees, clients, customers and communities, and by doing so, mitigates the business risks associated with ethical and compliance failures. Amy has federal criminal and civil litigation experience, as well as extensive experience advising executive management on personnel and compliance and ethics matters. She then earned her Doctor of Jurisprudence from Vanderbilt University School of Law. She holds a law license in Virginia, the District of Columbia and the state of Tennessee. Ms. McDougal is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. She is also certified by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics as a Compliance and Ethics Professional (CCEP).

Dr. Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco

Dr. Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco holds a Ph.D. in Criminology, Law and Society from George Mason University, with an expertise in human trafficking. She currently serves as a human trafficking expert witness for criminal cases and is the author of “Hidden in Plain Sight: America's Slaves of the New Millennium." Dr. Mehlman-Orozco’s writing can be found in The Washington Post, Forbes, The Crime Report, The Houston Chronicle, and The Baltimore Sun, among other media.

Linda Millis

Linda is a veteran of the intelligence community having served at the National Security Agency, the President's Intelligence Advisory Board at the White House, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Her areas of expertise include weapons of mass destruction, intelligence analysis, arms control, program management and building partnerships. She has also worked in several non-profit organizations serving the national security community and recently, she was a Senior Vice President in a cyber security start-up that specialized in biometrics and access rights management.

Eileen Parise

Eileen Parise brings nearly 30 years of experience in government and corporate relations to bear. She is an expert in orchestrating complex operations and international business transactions. Eileen excels at mitigating risks and complex business challenges and negotiating among diverse groups with an astute understanding of business to business solutions in various fields, including Federal Government, Aerospace, Defense and Homeland Security practices. Following her career as a senior executive in various positions across the National, International and Homeland Security sectors, she founded The Hawkeye Group International, LLC. Previously, Eileen served as Vice President of the Federal Sector at Erickson Aviation and developed a new Government Services Operation in Washington, D.C., supporting U.S. military and U.S. Government agencies at home and abroad. Prior to her work at Erickson Aviation, Eileen was Vice President for Federal and Commercial markets at Rapiscan Systems, and started the Homeland Security Division at FLIR Systems. As such, she expanded business development and increasing market share, while supporting components within the National Security and Homeland Security Communities and Department of Transportation. Eileen also worked in affiliation with the Pentagon for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the J-3, Deputy Directorate for Information Operations. As a political appointee, she served as the Deputy White House Liaison to the Department of Defense, White House Liaison to the Department of Commerce and the first Director of the Trade Advocacy Center at the International Trade Administration.

Randall Murch

Randall (Randy) Murch is a Research Lead and Professor of Practice at Virginia Tech – National Capital Region, where he has been since December 2004. Prior to that, he was a Research Staff Member, Institute for Defense Analyses for two years, where he conducted studies and analyses for the U.S. national security community. He was a Special Agent and Senior Executive, Federal Bureau of Investigation, from January 1980 to November 2002. While at the FBI, he served in three field offices, several assignments in the FBI (Forensic) Laboratory, several assignments in the FBI’s technical surveillance program and was detailed to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. He was responsible for many investigations, new technology development programs, conducting and supporting many technical investigations and operations, and managing complex mission-oriented programs and technical organizations, and had extensive collaborative engagements with other U.S. Government Agencies and friendly foreign governments. While he was SES, he initiated and oversaw the creation of the U.S. and first-ever Weapons of Mass Destruction forensic investigative program and has remained active in the biological component since his retirement. At Virginia Tech, Murch focuses on research, development, capability transition as well as strategic program development in advanced forensic science, biosecurity, cyberbiosecurity, biosurveillance, biological threat reduction and integrated capacity building at the interfaces of science and technology, operations, intelligence and investigations, policy and law. He has been loaned for IPA assignments to the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense as a senior advisor since he has been at Virginia Tech. For over 15 years, he has served on senior advisory groups for the U.S. national security community and on boards and committees for the U.S. National Academies. He has published in a variety of journals, published invited book chapters, has made numerous invited presentation throughout the U.S. and internationally, has testified in U.S. courts of law as an expert witness approximately 110 times and before the U.S. Congress on several occasions. He holds a BS from the University of Puget Sound, an MS from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign, all in the Life Sciences.

Chris Pogue

Chris Pogue is head of services, security and partner integration at Nuix. He has more than 15 years’ experience and 2,000 breach investigations under his belt. Over his career, Chris has led multiple professional security services organizations and corporate security initiatives to investigate thousands of security breaches worldwide. His extensive experience is drawn from careers as a cybercrimes investigator, ethical hacker, military officer, and law enforcement and military instructor. In 2010, Chris was named a SANS Thought Leader, ran an award-winning security blog (The Digital Standard), and has contributed to multiple security publications. Chris holds a Master's Degree in Information Security and is also an adjunct cybersecurity professor at Southern Utah University.

Johana "Jody" Reed

Johana "Jody" Reed is a Counsel with the law firm of McMahon, Welch and Learned, PLLC. Jody has over twenty years of experience as an attorney with over fifteen years of combined experience as a Business Finance Manager, a Contracts Manager at several defense contractors, and as a contracts management support person for the FAA under a contract. Jody's practice focuses on advising domestic and international clients on all aspects of government contracting law, including prime contracts, subcontracts and other related agreements, drafting requests for equitable adjustments and claims; drafting Contractor Performance Assessment Report System responses; reviewing, drafting, evaluating and revising ethics compliance programs; evaluation and submission of Mandatory Disclosures, Cost Accounting Standards and accounting systems/cost principles, contract and solicitation review and risk assessment, protection of intellectual property rights related to government contracts, Organizational Conflicts of Interests issues and mitigation plans, Freedom of Information Act requests and defenses, export controls compliance and training programs, and cyber security issues. She is experienced and skilled in negotiating both international and domestic contracts including subcontracts, teaming agreements, intellectual property licenses, agent agreements, and proprietary information agreements for numerous million- and billion-dollar programs.

Chris Ryan

Christopher Ryan is a Senior Managing Associate with Hagerty Consulting. He previously served as a Program and Policy Analyst in Maryland's Governor's Office of Homeland Security, and worked with the University of Maryland's Center for Health and Homeland Security to provide technical assistance to federal, state, local, and private sector partners on complex coordinated attack preparedness, critical infrastructure protection, capabilities assessment, strategic planning, and grant management. His work for HSToday focuses on strategic planning and preparing law enforcement and first responders for Complex Coordinated Terrorist Attacks.

Hector Santiago

Dr. Hector Santiago entered civilian government service after serving in the US Army for almost nine years. Starting his post-military career in 2006, Dr. Santiago has since worked throughout the intelligence community with a specialty in cyber threat analysis and telecommunications infrastructure security. He is currently the lead for Data Analytics Programs at the DHS Intelligence & Analysis Cyber Mission Center.

Ardian Shajkovci

Ardian Shajkovci, Ph.D., is a counter-terrorism researcher, lecturer and security analyst, with field research experience in the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, and Jordan), Western Europe, the Balkans, Kenya, and Central Asia. He is co-founder and director of recently initiated American Counterterrorism Targeting and Resilience Institute (ACTRI), a U.S.-based research center predominantly focused on the domestic aspects of terrorism-related threats. Past positions include Research Director and Senior Research Fellow at the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) and positions and consultancies with domestic and international organizations. Homeland security, disengagement from terrorism, violent extremist and terrorist group media communication strategy and information security, messaging and counter-messaging, and the strengthening of resilience to violent extremism and terrorism through application of the rule of law represent some of the areas of research interest. Ardian obtained his PhD. in Public Policy and Administration, with a focus on Homeland Security Policy, from Walden University. He obtained his M.A. in Public Policy and Administration, from Northwestern University, and a B.A. in International Relations and Diplomacy from Dominican University.

Gary M. Shiffman, Ph.D.

Gary M. Shiffman is an applied micro-economist and business executive working to combat organized violence, corruption, and coercion. He received his BA from the University of Colorado in Psychology, his MA from Georgetown University in National Security Studies, and his PhD in Economics from George Mason University. His academic work is complimented by his global operational experiences, including his service as a U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officer in the Pacific Fleet with tours in the Gulf War; as an official in the Pentagon and a Senior Executive in the US Department of Homeland Security; as a National Security Advisor in the US Senate; and as a business leader at a publicly-traded corporation. Currently, Dr. Shiffman serves as the CEO of Giant Oak, Inc., and the CEO of Consilient, both of which are machine learning and artificial intelligence companies building solutions to support professionals in the fields of national security and financial crime. He dedicates time to Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, teaching the next generation of national security leaders. Dr. Shiffman recently published The Economics of Violence: How Behavioral Science Can Transform Our View of Crime, Insurgency, and Terrorism with Cambridge University Press in 2020.

Anne Speckhard

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D., is Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) and serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine. She has interviewed over 700 terrorists, their family members and supporters in various parts of the world including in Western Europe, the Balkans, Central Asia, the Former Soviet Union and the Middle East. In the past three years, she has interviewed ISIS (n=239) defectors, returnees and prisoners as well as al Shabaab cadres (n=16) and their family members (n=25) as well as ideologues (n=2), studying their trajectories into and out of terrorism, their experiences inside ISIS (and al Shabaab), as well as developing the Breaking the ISIS Brand Counter Narrative Project materials from these interviews which includes over 175 short counter narrative videos of terrorists denouncing their groups as un-Islamic, corrupt and brutal which have been used in over 125 Facebook campaigns globally. She has also been training key stakeholders in law enforcement, intelligence, educators, and other countering violent extremism professionals on the use of counter-narrative messaging materials produced by ICSVE both locally and internationally as well as studying the use of children as violent actors by groups such as ISIS and consulting with governments on issues of repatriation and rehabilitation. In 2007, she was responsible for designing the psychological and Islamic challenge aspects of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to 20,000 + detainees and 800 juveniles. She is a sought after counterterrorism expert and has consulted to NATO, OSCE, the EU Commission and EU Parliament, European and other foreign governments and to the U.S. Senate & House, Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, Health & Human Services, CIA, and FBI and appeared on CNN, BBC, NPR, Fox News, MSNBC, CTV, and in Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, London Times and many other publications. She regularly speaks and publishes on the topics of the psychology of radicalization and terrorism and is the author of several books, including Talking to Terrorists, Bride of ISIS, Undercover Jihadi and ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate. Her publications are found here: https://georgetown.academia.edu/AnneSpeckhardWebsite: and on the ICSVE website http://www.icsve.org Follow @AnneSpeckhard

Charles Sun

Charles Sun is a columnist with HSToday focusing on security and implementation of IPv6. He is a highly innovative, dynamic, and experienced Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) executive with more than twenty-five years’ extensive professional and managerial experience in both the public and private sectors, having routinely and consistently provided the state of the art, innovative, and cutting edge ICT solutions and project management with a proactive vision and common sense to many organizations in both the public and private sectors. As the subject matter expert (SME) in Cloud Computing, SDN, NFV, Data Center Virtualization, IPv6, IoT, large enterprise & campus computer systems and converged voice, video, and data networks design, planning, testing, implementation, installation, and IT project management, Mr. Sun has previously served as Director of IT Engineering and Operations at the Export-Import Bank of the United States and Senior Advisor for Emerging Technologies at the U.S. Census Bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce. He also served as LAN/WAN Network Manager and Branch Chief at the U.S. Census Bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics of U.S. Department of Labor. Prior to his work in the U. S. federal government, Mr. Sun previously worked as a senior network engineer and principal network consultant at the University of Maryland (UMD and UMUC), Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, U. S. National Library of Medicine, AOL Time Warner, and Georgetown University. He also served as a Senior Technical Officer at Startec Global Communications and Network Manager/IT Manager at the National Museums of Asian Art of Smithsonian Institution and other non-profit organizations in the United States. As the recipient of graduate scholarships, Mr. Sun earned a Master of Arts degree in International Affairs from Ohio University. He also completed the courses required for the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program at Ohio University

Richard D. White

Richard D. White is recognized industry expert in the field of cybersecurity and an adjunct professor, cybersecurity information assurance at University of Maryland University College. White has more than 25 years’ experience in systems design, security technology implementation, and security policy development and enforcement, and has developed innovative and affordable approaches for the rapid deployment of cyber threat detection and remediation technologies. He also serves as managing director of Oxford Solutions, a global managed security services company. Prior to that post, he served as the Chief information Security Officer for the United States Capitol Police where he coordinated and managed all aspects of advanced malware and threat detection, incident response, and cyber remediation and containment efforts.

Peter D. Yachmetz

Peter D. Yachmetz of Yachmetz Consulting Group, LLC, is a retired FBI agent, having served 29 years at the Bureau. With both private and corporate sector security consulting experience, his specialities include physical security, access control, due diligence and comprehensive background screening, red-team assessment and penetration testing, security risk assessments, special event safety-security, and seminars/training on subjects including terrorism, school safety and security, and active shooter.