2026 Trusted CI Fellows Program: Cybersecurity Beyond the Ivory Tower

The Trusted CI Fellows program is now accepting applications from professionals and post-doctoral researchers looking to build practical cybersecurity skills for science and engineering. Fellows benefit from online workshops, mentorship, networking, and attendance at the NSF Cybersecurity Summit with travel support included. The application deadline is June 30, 2026. Interested applicants can reach out to fellows@trustedci.org with any questions and apply here. 

Over the next month, we will be highlighting this year's cohort of fellows. 

Carlos Cabrera, Senior lecturer and Coordinator for the Masters Program in the School of Computing at Clemson University, is on the forefront of biosecurity research and related cybersecurity advancements. However, he was seeking greater engagement with cybersecurity experts and professionals in private industry, which is why he sought out the Fellowship Program with Trusted CI.
“The Fellowship has opened many doors for me and my research. There’s a difference between academia and what happens in real life,” says Cabrera. “I have had the opportunity to speak with and learn from people implementing cybersecurity in private industry. It has been incredible to see what they are doing and how they are doing it.”

The Trusted CI Fellowship program empowers members of the scientific community with basic knowledge of cybersecurity and an understanding of Trusted CI’s services through virtual and hands-on training sessions, attending the NSF Cybersecurity Summit, and other resources.

“The connections through the Fellowship are great,” said Cabrera. “I have been able to speak with security professionals about my research, with a great grant writer for the NSF to see how I can improve my own grant applications, and with other faculty from across the country. It is an incredible group of people.”

His research has focused on biometrics and cybersecurity, with an emphasis on two areas: facial vein recognition as a secure, accurate, and user-friendly identity verification method — given that facial veins are nearly impossible to  replicate or alter — and the use of brainwaves to detect deception. This is the research that he will present at the next Cybersecurity Summit.

Thanks in part to the Trusted CI network, Cabrera’s research team is now partnering with insurance companies to see which drivers are “good” and with large produce importers to see if people are smuggling drugs in the fruit boxes.

Being a Trusted CI Fellow has also improved his teaching and his students’ understanding of the field. He has recently developed a Masters and Ph.D. program in artificial intelligence, and he currently teaches a general education class on artificial intelligence and ethics, weaving cybersecurity concepts into the class.

“Students nowadays want to know how what they are learning can be used in private industry and how it can help them get a job,” says Cabrera. “As threat actors become more sophisticated, the demand for well‐trained professionals who understand both the technical subtleties and the ethical implications of security work grows. We have a strong sense of responsibility to prepare students for the evolving landscape of digital threats.”

Written by Heather Bourbeau. Originally posted on the Sustainable Horizons Institute's website on June 23 and republished with permission.

2026 Trusted CI Fellows Program: Expanding Knowledge and Networks

The Trusted CI Fellows program is now accepting applications from professionals and post-doctoral researchers looking to build practical cybersecurity skills for science and engineering. Fellows benefit from online workshops, mentorship, networking, and attendance at the NSF Cybersecurity Summit with travel support included. The application deadline is June 30, 2026. Interested applicants can reach out to fellows@trustedci.org with any questions and apply here. 

Over the next month, we will be highlighting this year's cohort of fellows. 

As a Senior Computational and Data Science Research Specialist in the High-Performance Computing (HPC) User Services Group at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, Martin Kandes helps provide user support services for supercomputers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), contributes as co-Principal Investigator to research and development projects, and is an instructor for two CyberTraining programs. However, while cybersecurity is critical to everything he does, he is not a cybersecurity professional. This is why he sought out the expertise and community of the Fellowship program through Trusted CI, the NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence.

“I am no expert in cybersecurity. However, I do often play one to the students, faculty, staff, and other researchers who utilize the Continuous Integration (CI) and HPC resources we provide,” jokes Kandes. “Through the Trusted CI Fellowship program, I am hearing different perspectives and learning how different cybersecurity professionals think about the types of problems that I see day-to-day. It has been eye-opening.” 

The Trusted CI Fellowship program empowers members of the scientific community with basic knowledge of cybersecurity and an understanding of Trusted CI’s services through virtual and hands-on training sessions, attending the NSF Cybersecurity Summit, and other resources. As part of the Fellowship program, Kandes is particularly interested in expanding his ongoing long-term research project for possible presentation at this year’s Cybersecurity Summit. 

For over five years, Kandes and Scott Sakai, who participated in the Trusted CI Cybersecurity Framework Cohort Program, have been running a Jupyter Notebook service for the users on the SDSC’s HPC systems. Sakai, who recently moved to a new position at Berkeley Lab, had been in charge of the security side of the project, managing and maintaining a reverse proxy service. Kandes hopes to use his Fellowship to strengthen his technical knowledge of cybersecurity technologies — such as reverse proxies — areas where he feels less confident, with the goal of continuing to advance the Jupyter notebook service.

But it is the Trusted CI community itself that is invaluable for Kandes. “I also would love to have some people in the Trusted CI community look at this project and give feedback on the security architecture as I still feel like a novice,” says Kandes, who also recently submitted a new CyberTraining proposal to the NSF. The 13-part webinar course teaches users new to HPC systems how to run their research workloads on these systems, highlighting security tips.

“Having the perspective of the cybersecurity professionals through Trusted CI will also help me bring that into the project and help this project move forward,” says Kandes.

Written by Heather Bourbeau. Originally posted on the Sustainable Horizons Institute's website on June 16 and republished with permission.

2026 Trusted CI Fellows Program: Better Teaching Through Expert Engagement

The Trusted CI Fellows program is now accepting applications from professionals and post-doctoral researchers looking to build practical cybersecurity skills for science and engineering. Fellows benefit from online workshops, mentorship, networking, and attendance at the NSF Cybersecurity Summit with travel support included. The application deadline is June 30, 2026. Interested applicants can reach out to fellows@trustedci.org with any questions and apply here. 

Over the next month, we will be highlighting this year's cohort of fellows. 

As a professor at a regional state university, Nitin Sukhija, Professor and Director of Center for Cybersecurity and Advanced Computing at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, did not think he would be accepted into a program like the Fellowship Program with Trusted CI, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. However, at the 2025 Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC) conference, he met Sustainable Horizons Institute (SHI) staff, who encouraged him to apply. The rest, they say, is history.

The Trusted CI Fellowship Program empowers members of the scientific community with basic knowledge of cybersecurity and an understanding of Trusted CI’s services. “I thought I could never apply, that the program was only open to researchers affiliated with the NSF or R1 or R2 institutions,” says Sukhija. “This program does justice to its goal of expanding the reach of cybersecurity awareness to all regions.”

Sukhija notes that at a regional university, there is a need for faculty who can explore mechanisms and current industry standards of securing large-scale data and computing cyberinfrastructure and then teach those to their students and other researchers. 

“Given the dynamic nature of my core domain, to be able to teach well, I need to understand the latest topics and challenges,” says Sukhija, whose own research is focused on cyber-resilience and scientific computing. “Through the Trusted CI Fellowship Program, we meet experts face-to-face and discuss current topics and issues. These experts give us perspectives I might not be exposed to through my academic setting. I can see what is missing in my teaching or in my research.” 

The Trusted CI Fellows Program has opened invaluable professional and intellectual doors for Sukhija, forging connections that have enriched his career. His participation has also served as a powerful example for his students, demonstrating what they themselves can achieve. Following his example, two of his students applied for the NSF Trusted CI Scholars Program for 2026–2027, and one was selected.

Sukhija continues to share his knowledge and expand his network beyond his own university. Since he became a Trusted CI Fellow, Sukhijia has given several talks, including a tutorial at a regional cybersecurity summit on quantum machine learning (QML) applied to cybersecurity education. His tutorial explored how making experiential modules can help students learn real-world scenarios and QML for cybersecurity.

“Through this program,” Sukhija says, “I had more exposure to research topics in seven months than going to conferences for five years.”

Written by Heather Bourbeau. Originally posted on the Sustainable Horizons Institute's website on June 9 and republished with permission.

2026 Trusted CI Fellows Program: Finding Your Voice and Being Heard

The Trusted CI Fellows program is now accepting applications from professionals and post-doctoral researchers looking to build practical cybersecurity skills for science and engineering. Fellows benefit from online workshops, mentorship, networking, and attendance at the NSF Cybersecurity Summit with travel support included. The application deadline is June 30, 2026. Interested applicants can reach out to fellows@trustedci.org with any questions and apply here. 

Over the next month, we will be highlighting this year's cohort of fellows. 

Meet Pengyin Shan

As a senior research software engineer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Pengyin Shan’s work centers on developing accessible research applications for complex datasets. While she has no background in cybersecurity, as a coder working with high-performance computing (HPC) centers, Shan recognized the urgency of developing a deeper understanding of cybersecurity needs. This prompted her to apply to the Fellowship Program at Trusted CI, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. 

The Trusted CI Fellowship Program empowers members of the scientific
community with different perspectives and knowledge of cybersecurity and an understanding of Trusted CI’s services through virtual and hands-on training sessions, attending the NSF Cybersecurity Summit, and other resources. “Each week brought something I had not expected, whether that was a new way of thinking about cybersecurity, an NSF program that I had not previously engaged with, or a speaker sharing timely insights from an emerging domain,” says Ms. Shan. “The format of the learning is not like a regular classroom; it is more engaging.”

The interactive approach to learning also means that Ms. Shan’s non-traditional background helps cybersecurity experts further refine their approaches to certain problems. “The gathering with previous fellows at the 2025 NSF Cybersecurity Summit truly excited me. Hearing their experiences, learning about the cybersecurity challenges they are tackling, and seeing the strong sense of collaboration within the Trusted CI community made me feel welcomed and motivated to contribute my own perspectives and experiences,” says Shan. “Now I am able to provide feedback to experts, and together we can figure out the best way to adopt some of the cybersecurity practices into the research software engineering.”

The Trusted CI Fellowship experience has also helped Ms. Shan become a better coder who pays greater attention to cybersecurity. “Previously my priority was what my collaborator or what my user wanted, but going forward, I will also consider the security perspective,” says Ms. Shan. “Like I might say to a collaborator, ‘We can twist this feature so that we not just give you a great user experience, but we also keep your data and your identity safe.’”

She is currently researching the security of research software communication channels, with a focus on how AI-mediated tools are reshaping the threat landscape. She would like to share her findings at the next Cybersecurity Summit and is developing a project to address the security vulnerabilities she identified during her fellowship.

“As a Fellow, I have learned things that I never expected to learn and have been inspired to explore topics I had never thought about before,” says Shan. “This experience has opened my mind, allowed me to connect with a great community, and broadened my future research and career options.”

Written by Heather Bourbeau. Originally posted on the Sustainable Horizons Institute's website on June 2 and republished with permission.

Announcing the 2025 Trusted CI Fellowship!

Trusted CI, the NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, is proud to announce the 2025 Trusted CI Fellowship recipients!

We have selected ten individuals with professional interests in cybersecurity from a competitive national pool. These Fellows represent a wide range of institutions, disciplines, and experiences, united by a shared commitment to advancing cybersecurity in their communities in support of trustworthy open science. Throughout their Fellowship year, the Fellows will receive: * Recognition for their contributions to cybersecurity in the open science community. * Professional development opportunities, including specialized training. * Full travel support to participate in the 2025 NSF Cybersecurity Summit in Boulder, CO (October 20-23). Trusted CI looks forward to supporting their journey and seeing the impact they will make in strengthening the security of scientific cyberinfrastructure. Please join us in congratulating the 2025 Trusted CI Fellows! Learn more about our Fellows on our website: https://www.trustedci.org/2025-fellows

 

Applications are now open for the 2025 Trusted CI Fellowship!

We’re excited to announce that applications are now open for the 2025 Trusted CI Fellowship. This is your chance to receive expert training, work closely with Trusted CI members, and further empower the NSF community to secure its own research.

Click here to learn more about the Fellows program and to view our past Fellows

Click here to apply for the program

The application deadline is Thursday, July 31, 2025

Trusted CI’s past Fellows have been an amazing success with 35 Fellows from various fields, including:

Research Technologies
Astrophysics
Criminal Justice
Network and Combinatorial Optimization
and Computer Engineering

Fellowship Benefits:

• Participation in Virtual Cybersecurity Institute Training Workshops
• Receive funding to attend the 2025 NSF Cybersecurity Summit
• Access to Trusted CI staff and other Cybersecurity professionals

Participation in the Fellows program will occur from October 2025 to April 2026.

Announcing the 2023 Trusted CI Open Science Cybersecurity Fellows

Trusted CI, the NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, is excited to announce the Trusted CI Open Science Cybersecurity Fellows. Seven individuals with professional interests in cybersecurity have been selected from a nationally competitive pool. During the year of their Fellowship, they will receive recognition and cybersecurity professional development including training and travel funding to cybersecurity related events.

The 2023 Trusted CI Open Science Cybersecurity Fellows are:

Ramazan S. Aygun

Director of Center for Research Computing at Kennesaw State University

Ramazan S. Aygun is the Director of Center for Research Computing at Kennesaw State University and Associate Professor of Computer Science with joint appointment at the School of Data Science and Analytics.  He has published more than 130 refereed international journal papers, conference papers and book chapters in various aspects of data science including big data computing, machine learning, multimedia forensics, data mining, data modeling, data communications, data compression, data presentation, data retrieval, data indexing, data querying, and data fusion. His most recent work includes trustworthy machine learning and developing fair and explainable machine learning models by studying possible bias in the datasets. He is recently leading NSF funded project titled “CC* Data Storage: High Volume Data Storage Infrastructure for Scientific Research and Education at Kennesaw State University Shared as Open Science Data Federation Data Origin.” Dr. Aygun served as a program co-chair of IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia in 2012 and 2018. He has also served on the organization and program committees of more than 60 conferences and workshops. He is also serving as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Multimedia. He is a co-author of the book titled Data Analytics for Protein Crystallization.

Phuong Cao

Research Scientist at the Cybersecurity Division at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

Phuong Cao is a Research Scientist at the Cybersecurity Division at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research mission is to secure cyberinfrastructure, in particular high performance scientific computing, e.g., Blue Waters supercomputer. He has a broad interest in security, with a multidisciplinary focus on Internet-scale measurements of operational systems, deep measurement driven analytics using probabilistic graphical models, ML/AI-driven honeypot for early attack response, and machine assisted proofs of federated authentication protocols. Prior to joining NCSA, he has had hands-on experience in the network security industry, including reverse engineering of polymorphic computer viruses, responding to globally distributed denial of service attacks (Akamai’s CDN, LinkedIn), securing the Watson Health Cloud (IBM z Systems), and formal verification of smart contracts and OAuth protocols (Microsoft).

Nick Harrison

Information Security Officer for the North Carolina Community College System

Nick Harrison is an Information Security Officer for the North Carolina Community College System, where he helps staff and faculty provide secure technical solutions for the next generation of the nation's workforce. Prior to joining the Community College system, Nick was the Director of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Services at the Renaissance Computing Institute. He has over twenty years of IT experience in higher education and enjoys learning about cloud and virtualization technologies.

 

Lori Sussman

Assistant Professor of Technology and Cybersecurity at the University of Southern Maine.

Lori Sussman, Ed.D., is an Assistant Professor of Technology and Cybersecurity at the University of Southern Maine. She was part of the fourth class at the United States Military Academy to admit women and is a West Point graduate. Lori retired from the U.S. Army as a highly decorated colonel. Her military leadership experiences include 15th Regimental Signal Brigade Commander, 2nd Infantry Division Battalion Commander/CIO/G-6, Presidential Communications Officer, Joint Staff J-6 Executive Officer, and Assistant to the Army Chief of the Staff, as well as numerous demanding tactical assignments. Upon leaving service, Dr. Sussman worked in large and small companies, notably Cisco Systems and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). She is also an entrepreneur, having created several consulting businesses. In these varied roles, Dr. Sussman has managed a spectrum of highly complex organizations engaged in developing, integrating, deploying, and sustaining state-of-the-art technology and security solutions for clients. The Epsilon Pi Tau Technology Honor Society Awarded Dr. Sussman with the Warner Minilecture Award in 2020 and 2021 for her research about Cybersecurity Ambassadors. These individual awards followed recognition by the National Cyberwatch Center as the 2021 Most Innovative Cybersecurity Education Initiative. In 2021, Governor Mills named Dr. Sussman one of eleven veteran aides-de-camp. Her research areas include cybersecurity education, cybersecurity training and awareness, gender equity in technology and cybersecurity, and technology and cybersecurity leadership.

Dr. Gary Rogers

HPC Systems Administrator for the National Institute for Computational Sciences (NCIS) at the University of Tennessee

Dr. Gary Rogers earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Tennessee, while starting his career at the National Institute for Computational Sciences. He has over 18 years of HPC experience, many of those as an HPC administrator on some of the fastest supercomputers in the world. He played a key role in the national cyberinfrastructure projects, XSEDE and XSEDE 2.0, as the manager of the System and Operations Support group. He also participated in the XSEDE 2.0 Cybersecurity group, as well as the XSEDE Development Coordination Council. His current interests include developing and deploying secure compute platforms on which sensitive data can be analyzed, while reducing the barrier of entry for researchers to access and use such a platform. He holds an MS in Computer Science from the University of Tennessee, as well as a BS in Computer Science from the University of the South (Sewanee).  

David White

Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management research professor at Clemson University

David White is a Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management research professor at Clemson University. He is a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) expert with over twenty-five years in mapping, analytics, and spatial data collection. His most recent work uses mobility data to study visitation behavior in parks and protected areas. Additionally, his research has included several projects developing enterprise data and information systems requiring spatial data visualization and analytics. He holds a Ph.D. in Marine Science from the University of South Carolina.

Andrew Ferbert

Platform Services manager at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego (UCSD).

Andrew Ferbert is the Platform Services manager at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego (UCSD). Andrew’s primary responsibility is supporting SDSC and UCSD researchers through managed systems, operational support, and production systems integration. Throughout his career at SDSC, Andrew has never shied away from challenges and has worked in a variety of roles including desktop support, datacenter physical security, systems administration within HIPAA and FISMA projects, and working on projects with various branches of the United States Armed Force.

Deadline extended until Friday Dec. 2- Trusted CI 2023 Fellows Program Application

 We are now pleased to announce the call for applications for our 2023 Trusted CI Fellows.

Another cohort of six Fellows will receive training from and work closely with Trusted CI to expand their own understanding of trustworthy science and further empower the NSF community to secure its own research.

Applications are now open for the 5th round of Trusted CI Fellows! You can learn more about our Fellows program by visiting our website..

The deadline for applications is Friday, Dec 2. Click here to apply for the program.
Trusted CI’s first three cohorts of Fellows have been an amazing success with twenty Fellows from various fields, including:

• Research technologies

• Astrophysics

• Criminal justice

• Network and combinatorial optimization 

• and computer engineering. 

Click here to view our 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 Fellows

 

Trusted CI 2023 Fellows Program Application is open

We are now pleased to announce the call for applications for our 2023 Trusted CI Fellows.

Another cohort of six Fellows will receive training from and work closely with Trusted CI to expand their own understanding of trustworthy science and further empower the NSF community to secure its own research.

Applications are now open for the 5th round of Trusted CI Fellows! You can learn more about our Fellows program by visiting our website..

The deadline for applications is Friday Nov 18^th . Click here to apply for the program.
Trusted CI’s first three cohorts of Fellows have been an amazing success with twenty Fellows from various fields, including:

• Research technologies

• Astrophysics

• Criminal justice

• Network and combinatorial optimization 

• and computer engineering. 

Click here to view our 2019 , 2020, 2021 and 2022 Fellows

Trusted CI Fellows urge researchers to protect their data

Each year, Trusted CI selects a small number of community members to become Trusted CI Fellows. They make connections in the research cybersecurity community and receive training, knowledge, and skills from Trusted CI, which they can then take back into their local communities to advance the state of cybersecurity for research and serve as an ongoing Trusted CI liaison. Trusted CI also asks Fellows to produce a report to capture and share what they’ve learned and how it applies to their domain.

Trusted CI Fellows Deb McCaffrey and Michael Kyle have examined the security needs of higher education researchers in recently published reports. Having augmented their security knowledge from Trusted CI webinars and workshops, they advise researchers to take a systemic approach to protecting their data. 

In her Trusted CI report, Deb McCaffrey, a research computing facilitator at the University of Michigan, explores the security needs of basic and clinical research. She concludes that researchers need a better understanding of their security environments to protect their data.

Michael Kyle is a scientific applications consultant for the University of Delaware. In his Trusted CI report, he describes how researchers can manage their risks with the proper classification and protection of digital research data.

Trusted CI thanks Deb and Michael for these contributions and will highlight these and future Fellows reports in the Fellows section of the Trusted CI website.

Announcing Trusted CI's Open Science Cybersecurity Fellows Program (Applications due Nov.12th)

Application Deadline: Friday, Nov. 12th  Apply here.

Overview

Trusted CI serves the scientific community as the NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, providing leadership in and assistance in cybersecurity in the support of research. In 2019, Trusted CI is establishing an Open Science Cybersecurity Fellows program. This program will establish and support a network of Fellows with diversity in both geography and scientific discipline. These fellows will have access to training and other resources to foster their professional development in cybersecurity. In exchange, they will champion cybersecurity for science in their scientific and geographic communities and communicate challenges and successful practices to Trusted CI.

About the program

The vision for the Fellows program is to identify members of the scientific community, empower them with basic knowledge of cybersecurity and the understanding of Trusted CI’s services, and then have them serve as cybersecurity liaisons to their respective communities. They would then assist members of the community with basic cybersecurity challenges and connect them with Trusted CI for advanced challenges. 

Trusted CI will select six fellows each year.  Fellows will receive recognition, cybersecurity professional development consisting of training and travel funding. The Fellows’ training will consist of a Virtual Institute, providing 20 hours of basic cybersecurity training over six months. The training will be delivered by Trusted CI staff and invited speakers. The Virtual Institute will be presented as a weekly series via Zoom and recorded to be publicly available for later online viewing. Travel support is budgeted (during their first year only) to cover fellows’ attendance at the NSF Cybersecurity Summit, PEARC, and one professional development opportunity agreed to with Trusted CI. The Fellows will be added to an email list to discuss any challenges they encounter that will receive prioritized attention from Trusted CI staff. Trusted CI will recognize the Fellows on its website and social media. Fellowships are funded for one year but will be encouraged to continue to participate in TrustedCI activities the years following their fellowship year.

After the Virtual Institute, Fellows, with assistance from the Trusted CI team, will be expected to help their science community with cybersecurity and make them aware of Trusted CI for complex needs. By the end of the year, they will be expected to present or write a short white paper on the cybersecurity needs of their community and some initial steps they will take (or have taken) to address these needs. After the year of full support, Trusted CI will continue recognizing the cohort of Fellows and giving them prioritized attention. Over the years, this growing cohort of Fellows will broaden and diversify Trusted CI’s impact.

Application requirements

·   A description of their connection to the research community. Any connection to NSF projects should be clearly stated, ideally providing the NSF award number.
A statement of interest in cybersecurity

·   Two-page biosketch

·   Optional demographic info

·    A letter from their supervisor supporting their involvement and time commitment to the program

·    A commitment to fully participate in the Fellows activities for one year (and optionally thereafter)

The selection of Fellows would be made by the Trusted CI PIs and Senior Personnel based on the following criteria:

1.  Demonstrated connection to scientific research, with preference given to those who demonstrate a connection to NSF-funded science.

2.   Articulated interest in cybersecurity.

3.   Fellows that broaden Trusted CI’s impact across all seven NSF research directorates (Trusted CI encourages applications for individuals with connections to NSF directorates other than CISE), with connections to any of the NSF 10 Big Ideas, or Fellows that increase the participation of underrepresented populations.

Who should apply?   

·   Professionals and post-docs interested in cybersecurity for science, with evidence of that in their past and current role

·   Research Computing, Data, and IT technical or policy professionals interested in applying cybersecurity innovations to scientific research

·   Domain scientists interested in data integrity aspects of scientific research

·   Scientists from all across the seven NSF research directorates interested in how data integrity fits with their scientific mission

·   Researchers in the NSF 10 Big Ideas interested in cybersecurity needs

·   Regional network security personnel working across universities and facilities in their region

·   People comfortable collaborating and communicating across multiple institutions with IT / CISO / Research Computing and Data professionals

·    Anyone in a role relevant to cybersecurity for open science

More about the Fellowship

Fellows come from a variety of career stages, they demonstrate a passion for their area, the ability to communicate ideas effectively, and a real interest in the role of cybersecurity in research. Fellows are empowered to talk about cybersecurity to a wider audience, network with others who share a passion for cybersecurity for open science and learn key skills that benefit them and their collaborators.

If you have questions about the Fellows program, please let us know by emailing fellows@trustedci.org.

Trusted CI Announces The 2021 Fellows

 

Trusted CI, the NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, is excited to announce the Trusted CI Open Science Cybersecurity Fellows. Eight individuals with professional interests in cybersecurity have been selected from a nationally competitive pool.  During the year of their Fellowship, they will receive recognition and cybersecurity professional development including training and travel funding to cybersecurity related events.

The 2021 Trusted CI Open Science Cybersecurity Fellows are:

Deb McCaffrey

Research Computing Facilitator at Michigan Medicine

Deb McCaffrey is a Research Computing Facilitator at Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan's health system and medical school. She fell backwards into facilitation after completing a PhD in physical chemistry at UC Berkeley and has never looked back. She loves being involved in all the different research projects on campus and learning something new every day. Her long-term career goal is to get NIH and NSF to collaborate on cyberinfrastructure and provide NSF-like programs researchers with sensitive data."

 

 

Amiya Maji

Senior Computational Scientist at Purdue University

Amiya works as a Sr. Computational Scientist at Purdue University, where he collaborates with researchers from various scientific domains to streamline their scientific processes and reduce application ‎and data bottlenecks. He also leads the software build automation and testing efforts for Purdue's HPC clusters. Amiya’s research focuses on reliability and security of distributed computing systems; more specifically on vulnerability analysis and testing of mobile and cloud applications, and of IoT devices. Amiya and his colleagues have discovered several vulnerabilities in Android mobile applications and more recently in Wear OS. Amiya is also passionate about emerging socio-technological issues such as ethical AI and spread of misinformation in social networks.

Dr. Elie Alhajjar

Research Scientist at the Army Cyber Institute (ACI)

Dr. Elie Alhajjar is a research scientist at the Army Cyber Institute (ACI) and jointly an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the United States Military Academy (USMA) in West Point, NY, where he teaches and mentors cadets from all academic disciplines. His research interests include mathematical modeling machine learning and network analysis, from a cybersecurity viewpoint. He has presented his research work in international meetings in North America, Europe, and Asia. Before coming to West Point, Dr. Elie Alhajjar had a research appointment at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD. He holds a Master of Science and a PhD in mathematics from George Mason University, as well as master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Notre Dame  University.  

 

Matthew Peterson

Senior Faculty Research Assistant at Oregon State Univ.

Matthew is a Senior Faculty Research Assistant at Oregon State University's (OSU) Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing, where he is responsible for managing REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) platforms, assisting with health-related data management in the Cloud, and developing software pipelines for computational processing of genomics laboratory data. This past year, he has also been responsible for secure data management for the OSU TRACE-COVID-19 study that examines the prevalence of the novel coronavirus in communities. Matthew holds an M.S. in Applied Information Management from the University of Oregon and a Graduate Certificate in College and University Teaching from OSU. He is passionate about teaching and serves as an instructor for high performance computing and programming courses.

 

Mauricio Tavares

System and Network Administrator at RENCI

Mauricio Tavares has worked in the credit card and medical industry, which led to an interest in the behavioral aspect of data security and privacy.  He has published in topics ranging from aerospace engineering to computer automation and data privacy.  At RENCI he is a member of the FABRIC security working group helping craft the policies and procedures and advise IT staff to effectively protect this multinational research project."

 

Richard Wagner

Systems Integration Engineer at University of California, San Diego

Rick is part of the UCSD Research IT team, where he helps design and build cyberinfrastructure solutions for highly complex research projects that cut across the campus and beyond it. His career began with using cyberinfrastructure as a tool for research in astrophysics, solving data challenges in cosmology and supersonic turbulence. From there he worked in HPC at the San Diego Supercomputer and with Globus at the University of Chicago.

Shuyuan Mary Ho

Associate Professor at Florida State University

Shuyuan’s research focuses on trusted human-computer interactions, investigating issues of computer-mediated deception, disinformation, cyberbullying, hate speech, cloud forensics, cyber insider threat, and interactive cyber defense. She adopts heuristic approaches to coaching the next-gen cybersecurity workforce. Shuyuan is a sociotechnical behavioral scientist designing human-centered computing experiments that simulate complex trust interactions in cyberinfrastructure. Novel methodologies are invented to computationally model the defense of cyberspace, while addressing information ethics and privacy.

Michael Kyle

Scientific Applications Consultant at University of Delaware

Michael’s background is in Meteorology and has several years of experience as a scientific programmer. He currently works at the University of Delaware (UD) in the Information Technologies Research Cyberinfrastructure unit. In this role, Michael works directly with UD’s researchers and its partnering organizations to assist them in the best use of UD’s HPC resources. He is currently working on a Master’s in Cybersecurity at UD and wants to combine his passions for cybersecurity and research cyberinfrastructure to continue developing a safe, and secure computing environment for all types of research.

The Fellows will receive training consisting of a Virtual Institute, providing 20 hours of basic cybersecurity training over six months. The training will be delivered by Trusted CI staff and invited speakers. The Virtual Institute will be presented as a weekly series via Zoom and recorded to be publicly available for later online viewing. Travel support is budgeted (during their first year only) to cover fellows’ attendance at the NSF Cybersecurity Summit, PEARC, and one professional development opportunity agreed to with Trusted CI. The Fellows will be added to an email list to discuss any challenges they encounter that will receive prioritized attention from Trusted CI staff. Trusted CI will recognize the Fellows on its website and social media. Fellowships are funded for one year, after which the Trusted CI Fellows will be encouraged to continue participating in Trusted CI activities in the years following their fellowship year. After their training in the Virtual Institute, Fellows, with assistance from the Trusted CI team, are expected to help their science community with cybersecurity and make them aware of Trusted CI for complex needs. By the end of the year, they will be expected to present or write a short white paper on the cybersecurity needs of their community and some initial steps they will take (or have taken) to address these needs. After the Fellowship year Trusted CI will continue to recognize the cohort of Fellows and give them prioritized attention. Over the years, this growing cohort of Fellows will broaden and diversify Trusted CI’s impact.

 About the Trusted CI Fellows Program

Trusted CI serves the scientific community as the NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, providing leadership in and assistance in cybersecurity in the support of research. In 2019, Trusted CI establish an Open Science Cybersecurity Fellows program. This program establish and support a network of Fellows with diversity in both geography and scientific discipline. These fellows will have access to training and other resources to foster their professional development in cybersecurity. In exchange, they will champion cybersecurity for science in their scientific and geographic communities and communicate challenges and successful practices to Trusted CI.

Fellows come from a variety of career stages. They demonstrate a passion for their area, the ability to communicate ideas effectively, and a real interest in the role of cybersecurity in research. Fellows are empowered to talk about cybersecurity to a wider audience, network with others who share a passion for cybersecurity for open science and learn key skills that benefit them and their collaborators.