Hot Topics in the Science of Security Symposium (HotSoS)

ADAM TAGERT is the technical director the National Security Agency Science of Security Initiative.      
He sets the technical direction for research projects at 18 Science of Security (SoS) funded universities, leads the NSA Best Cybersecurity Paper Competition, guides the SoS awards at the International Science and Engineering Fair, and builds community with the SoS Virtual Organization. He received his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in Engineering and Public Policy where he researched national cybersecurity strategies of small developing nations, particularly Rwanda. He obtained a Computer Science degree from Princeton University.

ÖZGÜR KAFALI is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) and the Ethics Officer at the School of Computing at the University of Kent, UK. His research interests lie within the intersection of cybersecurity, multiagent systems, and requirements engineering. Kafali received a PhD in Computer Engineering from Bogazici University, Turkey. Previously he was a Postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina State University, working on the Science of Security Lablet project with Dr. Munindar Singh and Dr. Laurie Williams.

AHMAD RIDLEY is a Senior Researcher at the NSA in the Laboratory for Advanced Cybersecurity Research. He received a Ph. D in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland-College Park, with a concentration on stochastic optimization of queuing systems. At NSA, Dr. Ridley has focused his research interests on the application of machine learning methods to improve the human analysts’ ability to defend networks from cyber-attacks while enhancing the cyber-resilience of services dependent on those networks. Currently, he is researching the use of reinforcement learning in developing autonomous cyber defenses to automate and adapt cyber responses at high-speeds and large-scales.